Extricate
by sevenpercent
Summary: When Sherlock met Victor, and what happened next. A backstory that explains why caring truly may not be an advantage. This follows ACD canon and ignores BBC season 4, allowing the two of them to meet while at University.
1. Chapter 1

" _Bullseye!_ Come back here, you idiot!"

Victor swears as the dog takes off across the Coe Fen. He looks down at the leather loop that has been left dangling on his wrist; the bull terrier has chewed its way through the leash.

"You stupid bitch!" A pair of students walking towards him giggle at the epithet, and Victor blushes and then shrugs apologetically. "Well, she's a female dog, so it's justified."

One of the two girls laughs as her glance sweeps him up and down in appreciation. Six foot five and built of solid muscle, Victor's blond hair, trim waist and blue eyes usually work a treat on women.

But, apparently not on the canine variety – Bullseye is already a hundred yards away, head down in a cow pat and chomping enthusiastically.

"Don't eat that; it's disgusting! Come back here!" Victor fumbles in his pocket for a whistle, and begins blowing it furiously as he charges after her. The white dog with a black patch around its left eye pays absolutely no attention and continues eating as he approaches. This is one of her nastier habits; his fiancé Chloe had explained that bitches are attracted to eating faeces because that's what they do to clean up their puppies. Victor had told her to break the dog of such a habit if she wanted to kiss him after the dog was allowed to licked her face.

"Steady there; who's a good girl?" He tries to use a calm voice, so as to not frighten her. But, when he lunges for the length of damaged lead dangling from her collar, she senses his intent and runs off, the broken strap flapping on the ground behind her.

"Fuck!" He closes his eyes in disbelief. "I _so_ don't have time for this."

He'd left the flat with what he thought was plenty enough time for the dog to shed her excess energy and do her business. He is supposed to be on his way to rugby practice, where he was planning to dump the dog with one of the ground staff who is besotted with her and happy to keep her occupied for the duration of the practice.

The route he usually jogs to the ground on Grange Road crosses the Cam River from his flat on Saxon Street. It is a lovely run at this time of the year, the autumn's crisp afternoon sun touching the trees with colour. This late in the season the grass pasture is eaten well down by the cattle that are allowed to roam the common land, an odd reminder of the countryside right next to the famous Cambridge backs*. In another couple of weeks, the livestock will be gone, and he won't have to dodge them and their shit when he runs to the practice sessions.

On this occasion, Victor had tried to get the dog to run with him, but it had stubbornly refused. Trying to encourage the dog as it dragged behind him, leash firmly clamped between her teeth, fighting him every step of the way, slowed him down to a walking pace, and now he has no contingency left.

 _I am going to be chewed to bits by the coach_. As the University Blues team captain, it is up to Victor to be a role model and being late to practice is going to get him a right ear-bashing. _It won't even be the first time_ , he fumes at having to look after the bloody dog. He doesn't even _like_ the thing; he's already been in trouble because of it – only yesterday Bullseye had attacked a Pekingese walking on the Parks. Victor had to pay a fine and listen to the Community Support Officer's lecture about dangerous dogs, which he repeated at length last night on the phone to his absent fiancée. She already has one recorded black mark against her; one more and she'd be banned from the University Grounds. The dog, that is, not Chloe. It is just his luck that his fiancée's eldest sister, Sophia, who normally keeps Bullseye at home while Chloe is at university, is getting married in a month. Both sisters are now away for four days on a hen party trip to Ibiza, leaving Victor with the unenviable chore of walking the beast.

Chloe always tells him that he'd get more with honey than with harsh words, so he shouts after the dog again: "Bullseye; here, girl! I've got a biscuit," waving it in his hand. The ASBO dog ignores the incentive; she doesn't even turn to look, and keeps on going as fast as her legs will take it.

Victor sighs and breaks into a run. At least she is headed in the right direction. They'd already crossed the Cam River on the footbridge by Robinson Crusoe Island and the dog is now running toward the Mill Pond. Naturally, she doesn't mind the boggy ground, and is angling across the field that way. Victor picks up the pace, but he can't venture far off the path into the sinking, soft earth without risking an injury running this fast. On the firm sand of the path, it is easier to lengthen his stride. He might be a second row forward, but he can still put on plenty of speed. He should be able to cut her off at the pass.

The narrow bridges at Mill Pond form a bottle neck, so he starts shouting as the dog weaves between the pedestrians approaching them. "Someone stop that dog!"

Victor begins to worry about what might happen if she gets onto the roads on the other side. Newnham Road is very busy; if she gets hit by a car, he has no idea how he is going to explain it to Chloe. At times, he swears she loves the dog more than she does him.

He loses track of Bullseye as she disappears into the crowd of students and pedestrians. He spots two pushchairs with toddlers in them, and pants a prayer between strides that the dog won't crash into either of them. He is about twenty yards away when there is a shout and a strangled cry of pain from somewhere in the crowd that has formed just on the other side of the bridge, outside the Bella Italia wine bar.

Soon, yelling can be heard: "Get it off him! Grab the lead!"

Victor sprints across the bridge and starts pushing his way through the crowd. When he reaches the epicentre of it, the scene is something out of a nightmare: Bullseye has sunk her teeth into the left leg of a dark haired young man who is bent over trying to pry her jaws off. A middle-aged woman has grabbed the severed leather lead and is trying to drag the dog away from him. The dog just hangs on and clamps its jaws even tighter and deeper into the leg roughly where the calf muscle start.

"Bullseye! Off! _Let him go_!" Victor runs forward, grabs the dog by the scruff of her neck, just as the young man staggers and his backpack full of books slips off one shoulder, unbalancing him.

He falls hard. Crazed by the furore and the sight of her prey now brought down to her level, the bull terrier growls, closes its eyes and just bites down harder.

Frightened, the woman holding the remains of her leash lets go of it and backs off, as Victor again shouts " _No_!"

It has no effect; Bullseye shakes her head violently from side to side, as if to finish off what she has captured. Her victim cries out in pain, and there are shouts of horror from the crowd.

Without thinking, Victor grabs the dog's jaws and tries to pry them apart. Soon stunned by the strength of the canine's grip, he applies all the force of a University first team rugby player to those jaws, and when even this yields no results, he resorts to kicking the dog's soft underbelly. Winded by the blow, Bullseye squeals and lets go, which allows Victor to finally drag her away by the collar. The crowd backs away from them, scared by the sight of the bloodied teeth in the dog's slavering mouth. Victor grabs the remnants of the leash and then lashes it to the metal railing on the bridge – a double knot that will only tighten if she starts to pull on it.

Victor then turns back to see what damage the dog has inflicted on her hapless victim. Even as he kneels beside the young man, Victor knows that this is probably a university student: the science textbooks that have spilled out of his backpack are proof enough of that, as is what looks like a Trinity College scarf. But, the student is very young; probably a Fresher. The boy's eyes are closed in pain as he grips the back of his left leg.

"I am so sorry; the bloody dog is a menace, but I never thought she'd hurt anyone. How bad is it?"

The boy opens his eyes, lifting his hand away from where the dog has bitten right through the trousers. The hand is bloody.

Victor groans. Worry now fans the flames of his rage at the four-legged perpetrator. He mutters under his breath, "I'm going to beat that dog senseless."

"No!" the boy instantly protests, "it isn't her fault!" He doesn't look at Victor, but clamps his hand back down hard on the wound. "I was afraid she'd run into the road, so I stepped on the lead as she ran by. The force of it nearly throttled her. She attacked what she thought had hurt her. Don't blame the dog; please don't hurt her any more than I already have."

Victor heaves a sigh of relief at the unexpectedly lenient reaction. "What can I do to help?"

One of the women with a pushchair comes forward and crouches down. "I know some first aid; let me take a look." Without being asked, she takes hold of the torn trouser leg and rips the cloth away to expose the wound.

Victor gasps. The dog has opened a great gash starting at the calf muscle and going a long way down towards the foot. It is very deep, the gaping flesh mangled and torn, and there is an odd white sinewy bit hanging loose. Blood is flowing from the injury – not exactly gushing, but enough to scare him badly.

The woman blanches, too, turning to the crowd of onlookers. "Someone call an ambulance, _now!_ Does anyone have a clean piece of cloth? I need to apply pressure."

The boy slips his college scarf from his neck and hands it over to her. "Use this; it's new." Victor is surprised at how calm he seems. If their positions had been reversed, he knows that he'd be cursing a blue streak, or would have already passed out. He's never liked the sight of blood. It is a standing joke on the rugby squad; he would turn pale at the sight of someone with a broken nose or gashed face in a scrum.

Someone in the crowd calls out: "That dog is a menace, and should be put down. I'm calling the police to get it taken away."

The woman wads up the scarf and applies it to the wound, then addresses the crowd. "This will have to do until the ambulance gets here."

"No. No police, no ambulance," Bullseye's victim insists.

Surprised by the vehemence of his refusal, she argues: "You need medical treatment. Stitches at least, and careful cleaning." She checks to see how much blood had oozed into the scarf. "Definitely a job for an Emergency Department; that's probably going to need surgery, and antibiotics. Oh, and tetanus-"

He argues back; "No hospital. There's a doctor only three minutes from here – the Newnham Walk Surgery. I'll go there." He grabs the scarf out of her hands and then ties it around his leg, shooing her away from him. "I'll be alright; just stop fussing." He starts to get up.

Victor is torn. If the boy doesn't think it is as bad as it looks, then maybe the incident won't be reported. On the other hand, the wound looks terrible, and he feels awful that Bullseye had been the one to do it. It is his fault; he is responsible for this disaster.

Once the injured boy struggles to his feet, he starts collecting his books and picks up his backpack. When he starts to hobble towards the road, Victor calls out. "Wait; I'm coming with you."

Without turning around, the student replies, "Look after the dog. You can't leave her tied up like that; she'll get distressed if you leave her."

Victor ignores that and catches up with the boy. "You're more important than she is."

The boy does not have time to respond, because his wounded leg suddenly crumples beneath him and he falls again. This time, Victor is close enough to catch him. Even as he does, he realises that the boy has fainted.

After that, things happen so quickly it is a blur.

"Has anyone got a belt? I'm not wearing one." The woman is beside him trying to stem the flow of fresh blood; this time it is positively gushing – getting up and walking with the injury had obviously caused more damage. Victor is wearing a pair of joggers; the elasticated waist offers no help.

A hand pokes through the crowd that had moved to surround them and she grabs the proffered leather belt, applying it as a tourniquet. Victor can hear an ambulance siren in the distance – probably from Trumpington Street. It appears that someone had called for one after the young man had collapsed – Victor has been too preoccupied to notice the call being made. The siren's wail becomes clearer as it turns onto the Fen causeway to cross the river, and louder yet as it comes through the roundabout onto Queen's Road.

The crew is beside them in minutes, one of them asking questions of the woman about whether the victim had hit his head when he fell, and what exactly had happened. As soon as the professionals had showed up, she'd gone back to the pushchair to try to calm her little boy, crying because of the siren noise.

After getting their patient into a recovery position, one medic busies himself putting on a pressure bandage, and the other gets an IV running. "Anyone know his name?"

Victor goes through the boy's backpack. He finds a notebook, with a name written in it. "Holmes, initials WSS. He's a Trinity College student." There is an address: Burrells Fields, one of the college residential blocks. He reads the details out to the ambulance staff.

"Mister Holmes. Can you hear me?" The paramedic taps Holmes's face, then presses above his eye socket. There is no response at first, but eventually Victor sees a ridiculously long pair of lashes on the boy's pale cheek flutter. The two men lift Holmes onto a trolley and he is wheeled onto the ambulance, still semi-conscious. It goes off the concrete in front of the wine bar and into the road, the siren and blue lights parting the morning commuter traffic.

The woman goes back to her pushchair and pats her little boy's head. "Let's go home, Geoff; that's enough excitement for the day. Mummy's been a good first aider, and you've been a brave little boy to put up with all the commotion."

The crowd starts to dissipate, and as it thins, Victor can see where Bullseye is sitting, still tied to the bridge railing, wagging her tail at the people passing by, looking like nothing has happened at all.

A thought creeps into his head; if he just takes her home, and makes sure that she is never seen in Cambridge again, he (and she) just might get away with it.

As if he had said this aloud, a voice comes over his shoulder. "I'm still going to report this to the police. People like you with your dangerous dogs – you're a menace to society." An elderly man carrying a camera walks around him to take a photograph of Bullseye. Probably a tourist, but there is no way that Victor would take a chance that the man isn't being anything but determined in his decision.

Raising both of his hands as if in surrender, Victor reassures the bloke: "Don't worry; I'm going to do the right thing." Even if the guy hadn't threatened exposure, he isn't that kind of shit who would run away from this sort of mess, whatever his initial thought might have been.

He picks up the backpack and the scattered library books, then goes to untie Bullseye.

He needs to get his priorities straight. He'd have to go back to his flat to take her home, then he'd call the coach and tell him that he is off to the hospital; this is more important than missing a practice. As he walks back across the fen to the footbridge over the Cam, he keeps thinking about the student. Despite his obvious pain and distress, Holmes had been more concerned about the dog than himself. Victor feels embarrassed, almost ashamed of his own behaviour. He feels compelled to know more, to understand how someone so young could be so rational and calm. Even though the circumstances of their meeting are far from ideal, Victor cannot help but think that something extraordinary has just happened to him.

"Come on, Bullseye. We've got important things to do."

This time the dog trots obediently alongside him as they make their way across the field.

Notes:

Author's Notes: *"The Backs" is an area of Cambridge to the east of Queen's Road, where six of the university colleges back onto the River Cam, their grounds covering both banks of the river. The fronts of the colleges are all onto Trumpington Street which turns into King's Parade, but their "backs" go down to the river. The Coe Fen is used for common land grazing by cattle; it and Sheep's Green/Lammas Land to its south are reminders of Cambridge's agricultural heritage.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two Hospital**

* * *

"You _really_ need to re-think this."

"I'm an adult; I know my rights. I'll sign a self-discharge form. Treatment without consent is an offence of battery. Just don't touch me, or I'll lodge an official complaint. "

The consultant glares. She's gone from being concerned to frustrated, and now, finally, she is infuriated at the young man's obstinacy.

The blonde-haired, blue-eyed Kate Summers is often praised for her sympathetic bedside manner- not an easy accolade to earn in an Emergency Department. She is not above using a clever combination of cajoling, psychological techniques and headmistress-style admonishing to try to get a reluctant patient to calm down enough to let the team do their work. After years of experience, she's become very good at handling difficult patients. But as soon as the local anaesthetic goes in and he's recovered enough to start answering questions about the incident, this patient started refusing treatment.

She tries again. As a mother of two children, she is used to having to argue with young people who resist logic, but this patient is proving to be a tougher nut to crack than her toddler.

"A dog bite injury this serious is not something that can be ignored."

"I'm not ignoring it, just not agreeing to being admitted to hospital. I'll get it stitched up in a doctor's surgery. You have no right to hold me; get the Patients Advice Liaison person in here- I know you have to have this service."

The boy is sitting up on the Emergency Room bed, his right hand pressing down hard on the bit of his left forearm where the IV cannula had been, until he'd pulled it out a moment ago. She doubts that he would have had enough saline to fix his circulating blood volume. She'd watched him sway a bit when he sat up on the trolley; if he had passed out from hypovolemic shock it would serve him right.

Not a very professional thought _,_ Kate admits to herself, but she's had one of _those_ mornings following one of _those_ nights, hard on the heels of a yesterday she'd rather forget. She's been on-call all night after a difficult day shift yesterday. The junior doctor she'd passed the baton to at midnight had been too nervous to handle a number of cases on her own, so she'd been up and down like a yoyo answering her phone all night. The consultant who should have taken the shift at eight this morning has called in sick and the hospital manager is scrambling to get a replacement in. Until that person arrives, Kate can't just walk away.

This patient's threat of a PALS complaint is just the final straw.

She rehashes the last few minutes to see if she's done anything to warrant such hostility. Her first step had been to remove what the ambulance team had applied- a pressure dressing over wet gauze, packed into the a twenty centimetre gash. Even before the local anaesthetic had taken effect, the patient had started protesting. "I didn't agree to being brought here. Stop whatever you're doing."

She knows the routine well enough to do it in her sleep- after whacking in some local anaesthetic, take a good look, chop out the dead bits, wash it out, and stitch it up. In the face of his hostility, she had reverted to the formal medical terms: "The procedure is simple- inspection, debridement, irrigation and closure- I promise we'll be as quick as we can." That was before she realised how deep the wound was. Once the bloodied gauze had been unpacked, the calf had gaped like a split banana.

That's when she had decided distraction therapy might be in order. "What's your first name? We've just got a set of initials, Mister Holmes."

"Sherlock, but that's irrelevant. I want to leave now."

Could that be a made-up name, she wonders. "How did it happen?"

"That's none of your business. I don't have to tell you anything."

He's obviously feeling light headed, so lies back on the trolley, on his right side, as she inspects the wound more closely and realises that this is no simple dog bite. There are extensive signs of crushed tissue, and even in the viable areas, the bruising will be significant. And it is deep— leading her to consider the possibility of arterial, nerve and even bone damage.

She checks for a pulse on the left foot and is reassured. She then uses her finger to stroke both sides of the foot. "Can you feel that?"

"No, but it won't stop me from leaving."

"The fact that it's numb means that your sural nerve has taken a beating. And on top of that, the Achilles tendon is severed. I'm sorry…" She tries to remember the young man's name; he'd just said it, but she's been concentrating on the wound

"…Mister Holmes, we're going to have to keep you in. This needs surgery." Kate's memory needs a caffeine top-up. It is an odd first name; it will come back to her later.

She's begun planning the debridement- she will need to cut away the unviable tissue, and prepare the wound bed, get him on antibiotics, and then get him admitted; the surgery will need to be scheduled soon. She knows this is going to be an ortho referral- probably plastics, too, if the nerve is damaged, as she suspects.

"Didn't you hear me? I want to leave." The patient is now sounding not just impatient, but angry.

She bends over the wound site and replies in her most reassuring tone, "You aren't going to be able to walk on this leg for some time. The Achilles tendon is severed. That means foot drop- in layman's terms, your foot won't work. Even after surgery, it'll be weeks before you can put any weight on it. And the wound needs to be investigated for damage to the nerve, veins – even to the bone. On top of all that, dog bites are notoriously dirty, so we need to wash out as much bacteria as possible. Then start an IV drip of antibiotics. We wouldn't want to get an infection."

That provokes a derisory sniff. " _WE_ aren't doing this. It's _my_ leg. Tape a bandage back on it and I'm out of here."

That makes her stand upright in surprise. Most patients would be more worried by now, after being told the extent of the injury. "Are you completely stupid? This is not something that you can walk away from. If you don't have surgery, you could end up permanently disabled. And infection from any one of the dozen bacteria in a dog's mouth is very serious- sepsis _kills_ people. Just be sensible and let us do our job. If you need something to take the edge off the anxiety, I can prescribe it."

"No. Get a self-discharge form in here and I will sign it. You're done here."

She nods to Thomas, the health care assistant, who had been irrigating the wound with a saline solution. The local anaesthetic in his hand will deaden some of the sensation, which works in their favour.

To keep his attention away from what was going on back there, Doctor Summers wants the patient focused on her, so she keeps talking. Her medical professional tone of authority has not worked, so she tries another tack. "Over two thirds of the patients who try to self-discharge are under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Are you one of those, Mister Holmes?"

"No, I'm clean."

 _A revealing choice of words._ No one but a drug user ever phrases it like that. Despite his posh accent, Kate knows that addicts came in all shapes and sizes, but before she can say anything more, he continues, "and in any case, that's irrelevant to the decision, because getting a proper drugs test result would take days. You can't stop me leaving unless I am visibly impaired—which I am clearly not. You have to take my word for it."

Diversionary tactics then. "Is there someone we can call for you?"

"Yes, a taxi. I want to leave now."

She smiles at the way he has deftly parried her thrust. _He's done this before._

"I meant a parent." She needs his date of birth, to see if he's had other hospital admissions. If there is a clinical reason to hold him, she'll use that. "How old are you? Minors can't make a self-discharge." The young man looks just that- _young_. Behind the bravado and the vocabulary, up close she could see he is most probably a teenager. There is an outside chance he is underage, even though he looks to be a university student, given the scarf that was wrapped around the leg when the EMTs had picked him up.

"My parents are both dead. I am on my own, an adult and able to make this decision. So, you have to let me leave."

"I need proof of that."

He gives a histrionic sigh. "Date of birth 6 January 1979. Call the Cambridge University Office to get confirmation, or Trinity College. Tell your minion to stop doing whatever he is doing back there or I will file a formal complaint of battery. And get the form in here for me to sign _now."_

Most of the patients who are under the influence would be cursing a blue streak by now; verbal abuse of medical staff was sadly routine in cases like these. But this young man is being civil, if a bit peremptory. Bound by hospital rules, she can't argue with his demand, even though every instinct screams that he needs to be treated here.

Kate starts to rehearse mentally the first set of criteria for a self-discharge. "If you know about the form, then you've done this before. I need to have the answers to a set of questions." She walks to the other side of the trolley, where she can make proper eye contact with him. Kate crosses her arms, not afraid to signal her willingness to confront him on this. "First, you say you're clean, but I need specific detail re timing. Have you taken any drugs or consumed any alcohol in the last twenty four hours?"

"No. The only drugs I've had are the ones you injected into me. Are you so thick that you didn't hear me the first time? Whether I'm under the influence or not is irrelevant. Don't try to play tricks, doctor. You wouldn't have a legal leg to stand on."

"Right now, I'm more worried about you having a leg to stand on, if you walk out of here. The question goes to the matter of capacity."

That makes him shove himself from his side and sit bolt upright, putting the wound out of Thomas's reach. It must have hurt, pushing the wound into the surface of the trolley, but he doesn't blanch. After glaring at Thomas, the student turns back to her, saying through clenched teeth, "I am a mentally competent adult with the capacity to make this decision, Doctor. Don't you _dare_ suggest otherwise."

Then calming himself down, he affects an air of boredom. "'I have capacity. I understand that I have a dog bite, I am aware that you want to admit me for exploration, debridement, wash out and repair, with an option on intravenous antibiotics; I understand the consequences of not having this done – infection and sepsis. I'm an organic chemistry student, by the way, so I do know that I could die from septic shock, Doctor. And yes- let's add in there loss of function in the foot; and yet in spite of all of this, as a competent adult, I want to leave now.'

That clinches it for her; he has had experience in this, because the last question when determining competency is whether the patient could communicate their decision. Stifling her exasperation, "can you explain to me why you want to leave, despite all the risks?"

"That's not on the check list. I'm not required to give you a reason."

Doctor Summers raises her hands in surrender, "I'll go get the forms from reception but in the meantime, I'm ordering a referral to mental health services. So just sit there quietly until he comes down here."

She is at the door of the Resus Room when he shouts, "You can't do that!"

Kate stops and turns back to him. This is the first sign of his control breaking and it confirmed her hunch. "Yes, I can. Under the Mental Health Act 1983, Section 5 (2), I can order a 72 hour hold on you. And if that isn't enough, it's hospital policy." She recited from the form, " _where the consequences of refusing treatment are serious or life threatening, discussion and assistance must be sought from the consultant—_ that's me, by the way, hello— _and other relevant processionals such as the Psychiatric Liaison Service,_ who I am just about to call. So sit tight and wait, Mister Holmes."

Despite that bluff, once she's out of the Resus room. Kate delays making the formal referral call to the Psych service. She knows full well that they aren't usually involved in capacity cases, but she wants to stall long enough to do some checking. A Psych hold would only apply if the patient has a record of self-inflicted injuries or overdoses, or is so far gone that he is claiming to see pink aliens on the ceiling. She's not spotted any self-harm scars on his wrist. Kate needs something concrete, a record of something previously odd, maybe lithium levels on his blood tests or an admission that was mental health related. She can't really ask Psychiatric Services to see the patient just because he is not playing ball. But there is something that is really bugging her about this young man, and she isn't quite willing yet to throw in the towel. So, for the moment she'll try to play for more time.

Doctor Summers goes to the nurses' station and starts rummaging around in the file trays. She asks the Senior Nurse, "Could you get in touch with Trinity College, please? I need confirmation of the age of one of their students- Sherlock Holmes." Kate takes a brief moment of satisfaction when she realises that her adrenaline fuelled annoyance has brought the patient's name back to the front of her mind.

"I'd be grateful if you could also get whoever answers at Trinity to pass onto his tutor or whoever looks after pastoral care there the fact that their student has been injured, and see if they have a next of kin on file. If they give you a d.o.b, then you could run a quick check to see if there've been any previous hospital admissions. And, lastly, I'm being thick, but where are the self-discharge forms being kept these days? And I need a Section 5(2), as well." As she picks up the phone, the nurse smirks, pointing her thumb over her shoulder in the vague direction of the doors to the waiting room. "We moved the sign outs to the reception desk. People were getting pissed off at the waiting times and discharging themselves by the dozen, so it made sense to keep them out there. Gives staff a chance to spot them on the way out."

Doctor Summers gives her a rueful smile. "Good idea- it's useful to keep a record of when they realise that the waiting times for non-urgent cases are so long; it might help prove our case for more staff."

oOo

Kate has just collected the form for a Section 5 (2) hold from the receptionist when a man wearing motorbike leathers approaches the desk. At first she thinks he is a new walk-in, but then he speaks quietly to her.

"Excuse me, but you're a consultant, aren't you? Can you give me an update on Sherlock Holmes, the young man who was brought in here suffering from a dog bite?"

"Who are you?"

"My name is Robert Dryden. I've been keeping my eye on him- on behalf of his brother."

"I'm not allowed to talk about his condition to anyone other than family members. He said he's an orphan. He wants to discharge himself, rather than get treatment. Do you think this brother of his could talk some sense into him? Do you know how to reach him?"

Dryden's reaction is swift. "Let me get him on the phone now." He pulls out a mobile phone and hits speed dial. "Sir, I've got the consultant at the hospital here." He passes it over to her.

"Hello?" Kate is a tad unsure how to use the device; she's not used a blackberry before. It is something that she associates more with bankers and businessmen, and it makes her wonder about who the brother is.

"This is Mycroft Holmes. What's happened to Sherlock?"

Kate registers the fact that the man's voice is calm. Over the years she's dealt with a lot of family members by phone- nearly all of whom sound anxious and distressed when they realise that they are talking to an Emergency Department doctor.

She introduces herself, outlines the injury and Sherlock's determination to discharge himself. Before she can ask him if he could have a word with his brother, however, he interrupts.

"Don't allow that, Doctor. Not under any circumstances."

Almost apologetically, she tries to explain. "I can't really stop him, unless you tell me otherwise. Unless he's under 18, he knows his rights. Even the psych opinion I've asked for is just a delaying tactic; he's sure to pass it- you have to be barking mad, or a danger to yourself or others before they'll rule incompetence. I've no evidence to hold him."

There is a sigh on the other end of the phone. "My brother is classified as a vulnerable adult, Doctor Summers. He is nineteen years old and on the Autistic Spectrum. I am his legal guardian and have medical power of attorney. The man who handed you this phone is a bodyguard- he's the one who phoned me about the attack, which I am taking very seriously, even if my brother isn't. Sherlock should not to be released without my permission and if you think that he needs surgery, then he does not have that permission."

"Oh?!" She is surprised. What limited contact she's had with autistic patients had been with children, and in those cases a paediatric consultant became involved. The sharp tongued articulate young man she's just been sparring with does not conform to those images of developmentally challenged children. "I think you'd better be the one to tell him that. I'm not sure he'll listen to me."

There is a snort of suppressed laughter on the other end. "He won't, but don't take it personally. He won't listen to me, either. This isn't a case of persuasion, Doctor. Sedate him if you have to; once he knows that he's not getting out and that I'm aware of his situation, he's a serious flight risk."

Her silence as she digests this must have hinted at her discomfort, because the man on the other end continues to explain, "He hates hospitals- positively phobic- but if you are looking for a reason to treat him against his wishes, then I can document two overdoses and one suicide attempt."

"I'll need proof of all that, especially your status as legal guardian; send it to me as quick as you can by fax."

Kate passes on the fax line number while she runs down her mental checklist for a patient at risk of absconding: brought into the ED against his own wishes, unaccompanied, agitated, angry, frustrated by delay- and a total lack of engagement with the seriousness of his injuries. Yep- he ticked all the right boxes.

The calm voice at the other end of the phone continues, "I'll do that immediately, but in the meantime, if I were you, I'd order extra security right now to make sure he stays put."

Kate has already come to that decision. She looks down at the note she'd just scrawled on the receptionist's pad: _call security; we've got a runner._

"Mister Holmes; I'll get back to you. I need to make sure he doesn't leave." She hands the mobile phone back to the biker, and ran back into the ED's Resus room.

It is empty. " _Shit!"_ Kate bolts out and scans down the corridor to where she sees the back side of a trauma nurse's red scrubs- he must be chatting to the nurse at the station around the corner. She marches up to him and demands, "Where's your patient, Thomas?"

"Gone for a pee." He nods towards the patient's toilet door behind her.

"How long's he been in there?"

A frown crossed his brow. "Don't know; a while. I gave him a pair of crutches, and he hobbled down here while I cleared up the Resus Room. Don't worry- he's not wearing a gown but with one leg of his trousers cut off, he'd going to be a little obvious if he tries to scarper."

"Want to bet?" She mutters under her breath.

A few minutes later, Ron Gilbey, the security porter, gets the toilet door unlocked. The three of them peer into an empty room. Thomas scrubs the back of his neck, shaking his head in disbelief. "I _saw_ him go in there. He was really struggling with the crutches. How the hell…?"

Gilbey smirks, and points to the on-call room next to the toilet. "You were down the corridor at the Resus Room, weren't you?" When the Assistant nods, the security man's smirk broadens. "He must have walked in and stayed just long enough to fool you into going back in the room and then scarpered through the on-call door, though how the hell he locked the door from the outside is a puzzle. It's stalled us just long enough. I'll call up the tapes and see what happened, but I'll bet someone his height walked out of the on-call room, wearing scrubs."

Kate purses her lips and then draws a deep breath. "Look for someone limping badly. He can't walk on a severed Achilles tendon. And if he's never used crutches before, he won't be going anywhere fast."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three: Cutting Remarks**

* * *

"You know it would really help if you would tell us which GP you are registered with. Your college doesn't seem to have a record."

Sherlock doesn't even bother to look at the Charge Nurse, standing by his bed. He's officially ignoring everything at the moment, including the pain that is radiating out from his left leg. He hasn't said a single word since that A&E consultant and her security guard had brought him back into the resus room. He'd been lifted out of the wheelchair and thrust back onto the examination bed, after which there had been a flurry of activity as needles were stuck back in and tubes attached. The borrowed (well, stolen) scrubs were cut off, the blood-soaked trousers whisked away into a bin. He's spent the whole time trying to block out the pain through scrambling to come up with a plan – any plan – to stop the inevitable, while they fussed with the back of his leg. That inevitable naturally being the involvement of Mycroft.

"Do you need another dose of pain relief?" The nurse is fiddling with one of the bags on the pole beside the bed. She's tempting him to talk, using his pain to try to break his resolve to maintain his silence. Sherlock has been here before and knows how to use the pain to achieve the opposite – to focus, instead of letting it rule him. Fast-acting pain relief would slow his mind down, which is not what he needs if he is to figure out how to get out of here before the one-man cavalry of his brother shows up. How the hell did Mycroft even find out about the dog attack? Had he put a call in to every hospital or doctor's surgery in the city, giving an order to report the attendance of anyone who looks like this, no matter how trivial the reason for the visit? Sherlock wouldn't put it past him. And, now the interfering prat is supposedly on his way. The only reason why Mycroft isn't already looming over this wretched bed and berating him as though he is a child is because the A&E consultant said he was overseas and would not be back in the country until later tonight.

That fact gives Sherlock a bit of time to plan his escape. Admittedly, his first attempt had been rather panic-driven and hasty. Not enough planning or thought had gone into it. More opportunistic than intelligent, he's not surprised that he got caught. The rate of blood flow was rather alarming, and he now wonders if he could have managed a motorbike long enough to get out of Cambridge before he passed out.

If only that student had come with a car instead of a bike. He is clearly in his third year of studies; the sporty type but brighter than most of his ilk, even if he seems to have been taught to downplay his intelligence. Sherlock had played on his conscience, happy enough to do so if it got him out of the hospital and his brother's clutches. He'd been quite certain it would work; unlike this boy, a real toff from a family of old money would not have given a damn about Sherlock being a victim of his dog. No, Trevor was new money, preoccupied with the need to build and preserve a family reputation. They're probably pushing him into trying to become a ruthless, clubbable social climber. It won't work. This bloke is obviously too nice, as far as Sherlock can tell. He isn't the best at reading people's intentions.

Besides, he has more important things to worry about. So, Plan B. He'd let the A&E people patch up the worst, stem the bleeding, clean, pack and bandage the wound before admitting him to this wretched ward. Lying here, waiting for the obligatory lapse of time needed before surgery, he should have enough time to think of a better way. He's refused to tell them the last time he'd eaten. Let them wait the full six hours. The local anaesthetic they'd used in the initial exploration and assessment is wearing off.

Via the cannulas, he's currently being administered saline and antibiotics. The latter is a good reason to wait a bit. He is a science major, and he knows the dangers of dog bites. Even if he'd been able to close the wound himself, he'd need a prescription. He gives a puff of annoyance. It is somehow ironic that it is easier to obtain heroin or cocaine on the streets than it is amoxicillin.  
That voice of feminine authority standing by his bed has resumed, and he decides to tune back in. "Mister Holmes, we need you to co-operate. Without your medical records, there are risks. At the very least, you need to tell us if you are allergic to any drugs."

Charge Nurse Stevens is an annoying presence and Sherlock is almost moved to speak, to tell her that he is no fool; she knows as well as he does that trauma surgery takes place all the time on john doe patients brought in unconscious. Consent and records go by the board when the NHS is in life-saving mode. He is tempted to argue that this is not life threatening, and he should be given the choice to decline. But, that would mean he'd break cover, so he holds his tongue and keeps his eyes shut.

It doesn't matter. He's not going to make this any easier for them. The longer it takes, the better, because he won't be hanging around long enough for the surgery to take place, and for his propensity for various adverse drug reactions to come into play.

He's not finding the whole process of waiting easy, though. In fact, sensory issues are creeping in around his resolve, and they are already distracting him from his planning. Lying on his right side to keep the wound on his left leg elevated, his skin crawls; he's not sure whether the abrasion of the rough sheet on this bed is worse than the friction of the synthetic fibre of the wretched gown he'd been put into. The squeaking of the plastic bedcover beneath the sheet is adding further vile flair to the discordant soundtrack. He tries to stop himself from imagining the bodily fluids that it is designed to keep from the mattress.

As long as that nurse is by his bed, Sherlock tries desperately to still the squirm that would betray his discomfort – he needs to lull the staff into a false sense of security. So far, it has worked in that they haven't put him in a single room or posted a guard to stop him from leaving. His show of acquiescence seems to have made him less of a flight risk in their eyes.

He knows better. If he could sprout a pair of wings, he'd fly right out of this hell and into the cold, clear air. It's just as well that the only window in this wretched ward is at the far end of the eight beds in this section. He's lifted his head occasionally to take a look, judging the passage of time by the amount of daylight coming through. To do that means opening his eyes, which is becoming more of a trial. The bright fluorescent lighting provides competition to the itching, buzzing a chain saw into his thoughts, and he isn't sure which sensory intrusion is worse. The clatter and conversation of the ward distracts and disgusting scents intrude—four beds away an elderly man is suffering from dementia and a broken arm. He's incontinent, too. The dahlias brought in several days ago to the ancient nearly deaf patient next to him now stink of death row decay, a bit like the patient. He's not likely to recover from his broken hip, according to the whispered conversation between the daughter and her husband; he's already got cancer, and this injury just might be the final straw. He's not been able to use the frame beside his bed to do more than walk a few steps, so he won't be coming home. Next stop is a hospice.

The presence of so many people, strong scents, sounds and sensations is slowly building into a background static that threatens to overwhelm Sherlock's ability to plot. His breathing is becoming shallower as distress builds. Given that the A&E doctor had stopped him from self-discharge, the hospital knows he doesn't have the right to make his own decisions. But, unless Mycroft has spilled the beans completely, they aren't treating him like they would an autistic minor. Thank God for small mercies. But, that means he has to hold it together, not let the anxiety that is burrowing into his brain take hold to the point where he panics. No, that will lead to sedation, and then he really will lose the option of escape.

"Are you comfortable?" The nurse is still prattling on, asking more of her pointless questions.

As if he could ever be comfortable in a hospital.

For a moment, he plays out a scenario where he tells her that the last time he woke up in a hospital, it was because someone had tried to kill him with a lethal dose of tricyclic antidepressants*. Or perhaps she might like to hear about the time before, when he'd woken up in a secure ward after smashing a window and trying to escape through it without realising it was on the seventh floor**. At least he'd learned a lesson from that, and been very careful this time to note the levels in the lift coming up to the ward. The D8 Trauma and Orthopaedic ward is on the eighth floor, so no chance of a quick exit out a window. At least this time he isn't off his head from pneumonia and a raging fever, combined with a bad drug reaction – ample reason to avoid the pain relief on offer now.

"Mister Robinson, your consultant, will be up here shortly to talk you through the surgery."

Sherlock waits until the nurse leaves before drawing in a breath that is deep enough to make him groan. He'd fallen over when trying to get into the scrubs and his ribs are bruised from where he'd hit the bench on the way down. Still, those aches are nothing compared to the dog bite.

He wonders why the consultant is bothering to talk to him; by now Mycroft would have told them that he doesn't get a say in his own medical treatments. It is so unfair. For that reason alone, Sherlock wants to escape and get his injury seen to by someone unaware of Mycroft's legal status as his guardian, someone who would listen to what he wanted. He is so tired of not being able to have a say, to escape labels, and pontifications by people who think they know better.

His anxiety levels ratchet up another notch. He has reason to hate hospitals, having spent far too many months in them. He tries to focus on the sound of his own blood, whooshing in his ears. He can tell from the pace of it that he is starting to lose the battle to keep himself calm, and that knowledge only increases the thrum of his heart.

He's almost thankful for the distraction when his ears pick up a pair of leather shoes striking the linoleum floor, coming down the space between the two rows of beds. The steps carry the sound of authority, and they are followed by another softer set of shoes; these Sherlock recognises as belonging to a woman.

"Afternoon, Mister Holmes. I'm your surgeon, Fred Robinson, and I'm the one who gets to sort out this injury of yours."

Curiosity makes Sherlock open his eyes and take in the man. No white coat, and he's young. Probably just been promoted, judging by the pens in his white shirt pocket and the clipboard that he would have used as a registrar. Behind him stands a junior doctor, a woman who is consciously trying to force herself into a more professional and serious image than her blonde hair and blue eyes usually elicit from her peers. He decides the thick-framed, black-rimmed glasses make her look slightly ridiculous.

"You've had quite a run-in with a dog, and we need to operate quickly to debride away all affected tissue before the bacteria there gain a foothold. The bite is obviously deep, and going into the OR will allow us to get a really good look at all the structures that may have been compromised; we already know the Achilles tendon is ruptured, but we need to do a proper job of visualising the wound, to see the extent of the accompanying damage to the soft tissues, the bone, the nerve and blood vessels. We'll repair the damage and then get you plastered up." He nods to the young woman. "She's going to check your pulse in your toes; we need to know if the bleeding is a problem. The consultant downstairs didn't think it was quite bad enough to warrant clamping, but thinks we should keep an eye on it."

The sheet is pulled back, exposing Sherlock's left leg propped up on a wedge pillow. He takes a quick look, and sees that blood is seeping through the gauze. He averts his gaze, annoyed.

Suddenly, there are cold fingers on his toes, then a pressing on the nail bed of his big toe. The hands then keep moving, pressing in on an artery on the top if his foot, nearer to the ankle. A few moments of silence, followed by: "left foot is noticeably cooler, capillary fill is a bit slow. ATP pulse is a bit faint, suggesting circulatory compromise, but ADP is fine."

Sherlock finds his voice and forces out the words: "I refuse this surgery."

The consultant looks back down at him, rehearsing his encouraging-but-serious facial expression. "I'm sorry, but this is really not something that can wait. You'll risk severe blood loss and infection, sepsis even, if this doesn't get seen to properly. I am advised that the decision has already been made for you by your brother. The documentation is in order, so consent has been given."

"When's he going to show up?" Sherlock needs to know just how long he's got before Mycroft arrives and he loses the remaining shreds of his freedom.

Robinson turns to the junior doctor and raises an inquiring eyebrow.

She reads from the chart, "Mister Holmes is expected tomorrow afternoon; I think the Charge Nurse mentioned that he's somewhere in the Far East.

"How long will I be in hospital?"

The consultant looks back down at Sherlock, then employs a falsely cheery tone: "That depends on what we find, of course. But Achilles repairs are often done as a day surgery if there is no other damage. In your case, provided the other damage isn't too significant, I think you'll be discharged in a few days. I can get Doctor Fairley here to make sure you have a sick note, so the university accepts the absence. It will be a week to ten days in a cast, then we'll look at the wound and make sure it isn't infected, re-splint it with an acrylic cast and boot. About six weeks later you can start putting weight on it. By then, you'll be a dab hand at using crutches, no doubt." He is oozing reassurance.

Sherlock croaks out, "when?"

"When, as in, when will the surgery take place?"

Sherlock nods.

"As soon as possible. When did you last have something to eat?"

Sherlock sighs. Tit for tat. This is the reason why he prefers voluntary mutism. He doesn't want to negotiate. "I had a late lunch, just before I was attacked." He hasn't had anything solid to eat since yesterday evening, but the staff aren't to know that – he needs to delay as much as he can.

The consultant is looking at his notes and then his watch. "That suggests another two to three hours. It might be longer, but unless something worse comes in the door, you've been bumped up the board. As I explained, dog bites like this need to be deep cleaned quickly. The tendon repairs can't wait either."

The junior doctor sighs. "I'll re-dress the wound then."

"Right, next time I see you, it will be in the operating theatre." That being said, the consultant leaves, and Sherlock has to endure the careful unwrapping and then re-dressing the wound.  
All the while a chant is going through his head: not enough time/not enough time/not enough time. The desperate need to extricate himself from the situation beats a steady rhythm in tempo with his quickening pulse.

Luckily, the junior doctor is too absorbed in the mechanics of the dressing to notice.

The pain of pulling the blood-soaked bandage away brings tears to Sherlock's eyes, but he grits his teeth and uses it to focus his concentration. He has always found that pain is an amazingly affective antidote to anxiety. The biochemistry of it had been covered in last year's class – the release of endorphins by the body counter-acts adrenaline. They'd even been lectured about the dangers of self-harming as an addictive behaviour. Whatever the chemical reactions going on in his bloodstream are, they are working. By the time the female doctor is tying off the new gauze wrapping, he has the bare bones of a plan.

"Could you close the curtains around the bed, please?" Sherlock asks when the doctor pulls off her disposable gloves. He will need to do the next step without the prying eyes of nurses, visitors and other patients. He also has to time this very carefully, so he waits until he can hear no staff are in the ward.

The first step is to remove the two IVs. He's more careful this time, so there is no tearing or significant bleeding. He then removes the wedge pillow and starts very slowly to lever himself upright, letting his right leg drop down the side of the bed towards the floor. He knows he cannot faint or the game is up. Once his right foot connects with the freezing linoleum he starts to move his left leg, and then has to stuff his face back down on the pillow to stop crying out from the pain. Elevation has kept it under control, but once the wound is past the horizontal, it floods back.

Somehow, over the next two minutes he manages to get both the pain and his body back under control. Grabbing the bedside chair as a makeshift walking frame, he moves over to the curtain on the side with the elderly hip fracture patient in the next bed. Sherlock fumbles through the back of the curtain and then slowly pulls the man's walking frame into his own area. The poor chap is either so deaf or asleep that he is not likely to notice. Manoeuvring himself toward the gap in the curtain, Sherlock now stands, left leg bent and supported on the chair, while he keeps an eye on the nurse's station at the end. If he times this right, at some point a new shift will come on, and he might well be able to get to the patient's toilet along the ward corridor. He can act the part of an ambulatory patient, and as he is newly on the ward, the arriving staff won't necessarily know anything other than the fact that he is free to make his own way around.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Forty-three minutes later, Sherlock makes it out of the D8 Ward. He'd had to rest almost ten minutes in the patients' toilet to get himself back up on the frame, but at least that had given him the privacy he'd needed to slip on the bathrobe he'd lifted off a sleeping patient's bed. The sleeves are ridiculously short, and it is a rather unbecoming powder blue in colour, but at least it covers the gaping hospital gown – at least he's still wearing his own underpants instead of some hospital-issue monstrosities – and helps complete the disguise of an ambulatory patient. He waits for a visitor to come through the double doors and then goes out before the doors can swing shut. Then, he slowly manoeuvres himself past the seating area for the fracture clinic.

There are half a dozen outpatients waiting for their appointments, arms and legs in plaster; four are elderly, two children. Others must have come with patients who are being seen. One is in his late thirties, dressed in biker's leathers, and Sherlock wonders if he's come with someone who'd had a motorcycle accident. It makes him think once again about the merits of a motorcycle theft being the best way out of Cambridge. Motorbikes are relatively easy to steal, and they have the advantage of a helmet to hide one's identity from traffic cameras.

First things first. He's going to need a pair of trousers, and then something faster than this wretched walking frame. He manages to get halfway to the lifts before he beginning to hyperventilate as the pain escalates to excruciating. With each thump forward of the walking frame and then his hop behind, the muscle movement is pulling pain from places in his body that he does not even recognise. His vision keeps tunnelling and he has to stop, catch his breath and let the black edges retreat to the periphery again. When his vision does clear, a middle-aged visitor passes him, carrying a bouquet of flowers into the fracture clinic and flooding his distracted brain with pointless data. Divorced, second marriage, no wait; this is his mistress he's visiting- not now!

The man watches his slow movement down the hall and gives him a thumbs-up of encouragement.

Up the corridor but before the lifts, Sherlock spots the physical therapy department and knows that he is likely to find a wheelchair there. After the agonisingly slow progress he has made so far, the success of his escape is going to depend on a set of better set of wheels.

He turns and thumps his way down the narrower corridor. Before the nurses' station, he finds the wheelchair park and settles himself into the one nearest the door. He has to lift his left leg onto the foot paddle by hand; trying to exert any of the muscles in the mauled limb makes him want to yelp out in agony.

He is still trying to work out how to release the brakes, when someone behind him says: "Well, that's going to help me get you back where you belong." When Sherlock turns to see who has said this, he comes face to face with the same security guard who had found him outside.

A grin is spreading on the man's features. "Don't you think we'd keep an eye on someone who's already tried to leave once?" He grabs the wheelchair's handles and starts to push, just as Sherlock gets his good leg back onto the ground and starts to stand. The metal of the footplate collides with back of his right ankle since he is only half-way out of the chair. He goes down like he'd been pole-axed, slipping under the wheelchair as it collapses over on its side, pulling the security guard down onto the heap of metal, rubber and injured patient underneath. Just as he loses consciousness, Sherlock hears the sound of running feet, and a curse: "You were supposed to get him back to bed, you idiot, not hurt him more!"

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

"What's going on here?" The surgeon asks, having just taken in the sight of their patient intubated and under general anaesthesia, lying on his stomach instead of his side like he had requested. "I thought you were planning on a spinal?" he asks the anaesthetist standing on the other side of the drapes.

"We were, but judging by how he's been behaving, and the fact that sedation on a prone patient is always a bit of a challenge, I thought best to alter the plan. As for why on his stomach: have a look at his legs."

The bright lights in the operating theatre are pointed at not one but two bloodstained wads of gauze on the patient's shins. Puzzled, the surgeon circles the table and takes in the sight of Sherlock's both legs having been washed and draped for surgery. A trickle of blood is making its way down the side of the right foot from underneath the fresh, sterile gauze.

"How did he get that nasty laceration on the back of his other ankle? It isn't on his chart." He looks at the anaesthetist.

She shakes her head. "He tried to abscond. Wheelchair accident – must be a glutton for punishment. Got him that, plus a black eye and facial bruising that makes him look like it was a fight with something bigger than a dog. Your registrar thought it best we handle both injuries at once, which is why we changed the position."

Fred Robinson's eyebrows rise above the surgical mask. "I should have thought he was hardly ambulatory even in a wheelchair, given the severity of the bite wound." He sends a stern glance in the direction of his junior doctor, who is standing away from the table. "Doctor Fairley, you do need to keep a closer eye on my patients; we are supposed to be healing this young man, not getting him in an even worse state."

After being helped into his surgical gown and sterile gloves, he leans closer to see the fresh laceration, removing the gauze. "Has this been x-rayed?"

The junior doctor speaks up, a little too quickly to sound anything but apologetic. "Yes, and nothing is broken. Head CT clear as well. He's good to operate."

The scrub nurse grabs the gauze and starts dabbing at the wound since the bleeding is preventing Robinson from seeing deeper into the tissues. Robinson manipulates the foot, feeling the Achilles tendon carefully. "Bruised, not torn, luckily. But, now there is no way he can be ready for discharge inside a week; this ankle is going to have to take the strain of six weeks' worth of weight bearing, while the left leg heals."

He turns his attention to the bite wound on the other leg; the surgical field there stained yellow with betadine just like the opposite side. The scrub nurse gives the diathermy to the registrar, who steps next to the table.

As he picks up the scalpel, Robinson announces to her: "I'm going to leave the post-operative treatment to you, Doctor Fairley – it might help you learn the value of getting bedside co-operation."

The blonde junior doctor looks horrified at the prospect.

Raising his brow knowingly, Robinson continues: "now, come over to this side and let me show you what a mess the A&E consultant has probably made of the initial debridement."

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

This is an appropriate point to thank my beloved beta, J_Baillier, without whose tireless polishing and medical attention to detail this story would be a whole lot worse. My kudos to her!  
* see Periodic Tales Sodium Part Four  
** Periodic Tales, Berkelium Part Two and Three


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four: Responsibilities**

* * *

Victor purses his lips and lets his head hang low, so he can look down at the floor instead of facing the grey-haired and stern-faced coach who's giving him a blistering rant. He's still wearing his Lock Forward's Number 5 shirt since the coach had told him he wanted a word; all his teammates are already making a racket in the shower.

"Here's an old truism: rugby players don't have friends. There is no time to hang out with non-rugby peers, and since the sport is so demanding and competitive they certainly don't forge any friendships on the field, either. A captain isn't there to make _friends_ , Trevor. You know that. So, whatever made you miss practice can't be excused on those grounds. It's messing with your performance even when you showed up today, so you'd better straighten things out in a hurry, or you'll be looking at a suspension."

The awful thing is that Victor knows the coach is right. His team mates are not his friends. Although he gets along with almost everyone and he's quite certain he is regarded as much 'one of the lads' as anyone, he doesn't feel really close to anyone in that crowd. He had once chalked it up to being engaged, since Chloe dictated so much of their social life as she towed Victor along from party to party amongst the well-connected Cambridge elites, wearing him on her arm as her Rugby Captain. Victor just sat back and went along for the ride and it's never bothered him; it's just the way things are.

But, ever since that blasted dog of hers went on its spree, his mind hasn't been on rugby at all, and it shows: the practise session today has gone disastrously wrong. He'd cocked up at least four of the line out drills, and the squad members who had lifted him to catch the ball thrown from the touch line had started making snide comments. What makes matters worse is that speculation as to the reason why he had missed practice again yesterday is rife. It's all just a load of rumours, of course, ranging from generic 'woman trouble' to finally succumbing to an all-night binge drinking session and having the hangover from hell. The facts are different, but Victor is grateful for the coach's sense of discretion; nobody has been told anything beyond the team captain having been absent because of a 'personal reason'.

That reason has a proper name, of course, which is Sherlock Holmes. When Victor had followed the injured student being wheeled back into the A&E department, he had been stopped at the door and told he couldn't go any further: 'unless you are family, you need to stay in the waiting room'. As he was neither family nor a close friend, Victor had decided that hanging around was rather pointless.

So, yesterday he had gone to the rugby field to explain his delay to the coach. His excuse of medical emergency was followed up with an interrogation about the details. Then came the coach's verdict: "better let the girlfriend walk her own bloody dog in future, Trevor. As for thinking you had to follow the ambulance instead of just leaving the victim in the hands of healthcare professionals- well, that good Samaritan routine just cost you a full practice. Think about your priorities next time." By the time the coach's tongue-lashing was done, Victor was too late to get to his tutorial. He rode back to his flat on Saxon Street, pushed his bicycle into the hall and closed the front door to the sound of a bull terrier deliriously happy to see him again.

"Shut UP!" he had bellowed at Bullseye, letting all of his annoyance at the day colour his voice. She had ignored him and kept barking.

Today, there's nothing study-related he needs to do after practice, so he decides to shower at home, wanting to escape the locker room before his team mates file back from the shower. He's not in the mood to face their snide comments.

After taking his time biking home since he wanted to clear his head, he opens the front door to their flat just as the land line begins to ring. He wonders if it is Chloe, and hopes it is, because she needs to get the bloody dog out of the flat before she is ID'd by the police and cited as a dangerous dog.

"Hello, am I speaking to Victor Trevor?" It is a woman's voice, firm and speaking with authority.

Slightly alarmed, his gaze falls on the bull terrier, who is sitting looking up at him, wagging her tail. _Oh shit, it has to be the police._

Rather tentatively, he says, "Yes?"

"This is Senior Charge Nurse Stevens. I've been asked to telephone you by a patient of ours, Sherlock Holmes, to ask if you would come in. He needs to talk to you – urgently, he says."

"Oh, how did the surgery go? Is he okay?"

"The operation went well, and he came down to this ward after recovery. An hour ago, he asked me to make the call to you. I offered to bring him a phone, but he was adamant that the call be made by the hospital. I'm sorry, but I've only now got round to it."

"Uh, what time is visiting hours?"

"Over at five."

"Then I can't do it today. You'll have to tell him I'm sorry but I can't make it there in time."

He hears her draw a breath. "That's really rather unfortunate. I was hoping you could come in _now_. His brother has just arrived and the two of them are having a rather furious row."

 _Oh great._ A family fight; just what Victor doesn't need to get involved in. What could he possibly even do about some disagreement between people he doesn't know? His coach's warning about priorities echoing in his head, he answers: "well, if his brother is there, I don't see why I need to come. Surely, whatever Holmes needs will get sorted out by his family."

There's a puff of exasperation on the other end of the line. "No, you don't understand. I need you here to stop them from upsetting everyone else on the ward. The brother is bullying the staff, and the patient is shouting at him to get out. A trusted third party might be just the thing to calm them both down. _Please._ The patient said that he especially needed to talk to _you_ and not his brother – in fact, he's been shouting his head off that he doesn't want to talk to this brother of his ever again. It's not good; he's only been out of surgery a couple of hours, and getting upset like this is not good for him."

Victor raises his eyes to the ceiling and takes a deep breath. "Look, it's not like I'm a friend. I only met him yesterday when my fiancée's dog bit him."

Her tone changes: "So, it was _your_ dog that ended up tearing his Achilles tendon in half, damaged his sural nerve, bruised the bone and made him endure a two-hour operation under general anaesthetic? You are the reason why he's going to be hobbling about for months? Mister Trevor, I would say you _owe_ it to the patient to come in if he asks you to."

Victor can only reply rather feebly: "Not my dog; my fiancé's."

She's not having it. "Your responsibility, young man. Ward D8; I will tell him you're on your way."

"But…" The calls has been disconnected, leaving Victor staring at the receiver in his hand in disbelief. Returning it to the cradle he looks at the dog again, who of course is wagging her tail.

"This is all your bloody fault, Bullseye. She's right and I can't deny it. That poor bloke is suffering because I couldn't keep you under control. How can running around a field with a ball be more important than doing the right thing?"

Confused by the distress in Victor's tone, the dog tilts her head but doesn't look any less happy-go-lucky.

So, he pushes his bike out into the street again, and heads to the hospital.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

According to the information receptionist, Ward D8 is for Trauma and Orthopaedics. "Through the concourse and then turn left. Go past the hairdressers and you'll see signs for C and D wards. Take the lift to level 8. When you leave the lift, turn left, then right and D8 will be in front of you. You'll have to use the intercom to get them to open the door for you."

Victor does get lost briefly because he forgets to turn right after the left, and ends up having to ask someone in the outpatient fracture clinic to point him in the right direction.

Finally, in front of the right set of double doors, Victor pushes and then rolls his eyes when it doesn't budge. He finds the intercom and gives it a push. A faint bell sounds somewhere down the corridor he can see through the window in the door.

"Can I help you?"

"Victor Trevor to see a patient – Sherlock Holmes."

"Oh yes, please come in straight away, don't stop at the chairs; come directly to the nurses station."

Is it his imagination, or does the voice on the other end seem rather glad about his arrival?

That suspicion is confirmed when he shows up at the desk. There is a nurse wearing a navy blue uniform with white piping; he can read her name badge and recognises the name: Stevens. She's the one who had phoned him. Looking up from the file she is holding, relief floods her expression. "You must be Trevor. I'll take you to them. We thought the patient was a handful, until we met the brother. He's just finished shredding a staff nurse who has had to go home in tears. I've told him that we have a strict policy on verbal abuse, and he said we're to leave them to it. Try to calm them both down, will you? They are seriously upsetting the rest of the patients on the ward." Without letting him reply, she marches off with a curt "follow me".

Victor understands what she had meant; even before they turn a corner and get into the ward proper, his ears pick up a shouting baritone voice: "Do your colleagues know about your delusions of megalomania? Or am I just the sole unfortunate recipient of all that bile and spleen you store up when you can't control people the way you want to? Just _leave me alone!_ "

A blue curtain surrounds one of the eight beds in the hall Nurse Stevens leads Victor to, and that flimsy cloth does nothing to stop the sound of outraged indignation emerging at full volume.

A different voice snaps a caustic response: "Resisting medication is just childish. If you stopped acting like a child, then you wouldn't have to be treated like one."

"You're just trying to drug me into docility, so you can lock me up again. You _always_ do this, even though I have the right to say no."

Nurse Stevens pulls the curtain aside and steps in, drawing in Victor before she closes it behind him. "Gentlemen, _please._ Keep your voices down; there are patients on this ward who need peace and quiet."

She then directs her words to the bed-ridden patient. "I phoned the student you asked for; here he is."

All eyes are on Victor now, and the most piercing gaze of them all belongs to a tall man standing beside the bed. He is wearing a three piece suit that is a little crumpled, and there is the barest hint of a five o'clock shadow on the stern face. He looks tired, but his outraged glare is sharp.

Victor can't control a blush of embarrassment rising up his cheeks.

"Who are you? Why are you interrupting a private conversation?" the man asks, and the questions are delivered with the practiced disdain of an aristocrat.

Victor knows that particular tone well; he's been subjected to it every time his father had pushed him into some new social circle and asked him to "get on with it". On this occasion, there is something in the tone of entitlement that annoys Victor, and he finds anger replacing embarrassment. "Victor Trevor. Your brother asked for me to come, so maybe he should be the one to explain what I'm doing here."

Stepping further into the curtained area, he can now take a better look at Sherlock. The boy looks so ghastly that Victor can barely hide his shock. There is a great bruise running down the side of his face, from the temple, across the sharp cheekbone. One of his eyes is black. There are IV tubes and monitors; his left leg is elevated in some sort of sling. But, it's the presence of a burly security guard that surprises Victor.

"Is a guard _really_ necessary?"

She grimaces. "Well, three strikes…."

Before she can finish the sentence, the older man interrupts. "What she is referring to is that my brother is too stupid to stay put and get the medical treatment he absolutely needs. He has tried to abscond on three separate occasions, and has been refusing to be sedated after waking up from surgery to curb such impulses."

Nurse Stevens continues, sounding apologetic: "The security personnel are here to keep an eye on him while we await a psych evaluation to ascertain whether he is able to refuse sedation."

Mister Three-piece-suit seems to have lost interest in Victor and addresses to the Nurse instead: "Now that I'm here, you don't need a psychiatric consultation. I'm the Nearest Family Relative and authorised under the Mental Health Act, given his diminished capacity and status as a vulnerable adult. The details of his autism diagnosis are in the hands of your superiors now. I've given the certified copy of the Power of Attorney to the hospital administrators, enabling me to make all the necessary decisions. _Sedate him_."

Victor tries to wade through the legalese and understand the meanings of _diminished capacity_ _autism_ " and _vulnerable adult_ , none of which seem to match what impressions his limited contact with Sherlock have given him.

The nurse picks up a syringe from the metal dish on the bedside cabinet and reaches for the IV drip.

" _Wait!_ " Sherlock exclaims and pulls at the restraints, making the side bars of the hospital bed rattle from the force. "I demand to see the hospital's legal team! Don't let him bully you into this, Nurse – I know my rights. The Mental Health Act he's waving at you doesn't apply to unrelated physical injuries. There is nothing wrong with my mental ability to make a choice. I am not under the influence of drugs, you aren't holding me under a section two because I am perfectly _fine_ , and I absolutely refuse sedation. If you come anywhere near me with that needle and if you don't release me from these ridiculous restraints, then Victor Trevor is going to call the police and you'll be arrested for assault and battery."

All this had come out at blistering speed, and it takes Victor a moment to catch up with the fact that Sherlock expects _him_ to call the police on his behalf. _What the hell?_ How did he end up being dragged into this family dispute?

The nurse hesitates.

The patient's brother snaps: "Oh for goodness sake, woman, just do your job and inject the sedative."

Perhaps it is the peremptory tone that does it, but Nurse Stevens shakes her head and steps away from the IV pole. She puts the syringe back in the metal pan and puts it on the bedside cabinet. "I'm sorry," she says. "I can't, not yet anyway; I think I do need to have a word with our legal people about this."

Victor looks first at Sherlock, and then at his brother, clearly livid at her refusal.

The nurse leaves and pulls the curtain behind her again, perhaps with more force than is necessary.

Victor clears his throat. "Can anyone tell me what is going on?" He leaves out the swearing that he'd been tempted to put in; this isn't a rugby pitch, although the confrontation seems to be almost as brutal.

Sherlock laughs. "Allow me to introduce you to my brother, Mycroft Holmes, who likes to think he can get away with anything. I've asked you here to be my witness, to make sure he doesn't abuse his authority and try to ruin my life, like he always does."

 _What kind of parents name their kids Sherlock and Mycroft_? Victor shakes his head. "I don't know what's going on here, but I am sure that it isn't just about my dog taking a bite out of your leg. It sure as hell doesn't explain who you've ended up battered and bruised and under guard."

Sherlock says to the security guard, "You can piss off, too. Neither you nor that nurse are needed here."

As Victor starts to shoo the guard out of the curtained cubical, Mycroft Holmes interjects: "I wouldn't interfere if I were you."

"Well, aren't we all glad that you're not." Victor is big enough that very few people have ever tried to bully him, and they only do it once before they learn that it often had the reverse effect on him.

"Leave now and you might avoid making more of a mess of this than you already have by failing to control your dog. I will ensure the police put the beast down if you don't desist from this interference."

"Stop it, Mycroft." Despite having his leg elevated, Sherlock tries to sit up straighter. "You know that the legalities are in my favour. I'd have to be certifiable for you to get the right to make decisions on my behalf, and it's quite clear that I'm not. So, stop trying to throw your considerable weight around. And, you are _not_ going to take it out on a hapless dog, either, I'm the only one who should make a legal complaint, and I have no intention of doing so."

His brother turns away and looks at Victor again, a patrician eyebrow rising in appraisal. "Of course, you'd think of the dog, Sherlock. Perhaps it isn't the animal I should be reporting to the police, but the one who was responsible for letting a beast loose. Humans can be dangerous in their stupidity."

"It's not his fault." Sherlock's voice has taken on a slight anxious edge, the reason for which seems unclear.

Victor tilts his head to the side a bit and asks the older Holmes carefully: "Is that supposed to be some kind of threat?" His stance makes it clear what he thinks of such an idea.

Instead of backing down, Mycroft Holmes takes two steps closer, now intruding into Victor's personal space in a way that is designed to make him feel intimidated.

He holds his ground.

In a quiet tone that carried more menace than a louder one would have, Mycroft says: "But, of course, you don't really value the dog's life that much, because it isn't yours. Very well, let's try something a little closer to home, shall we? If you at all value your sporting career or your tenure here as a university student, you will cease interfering in my brother's life. Leave now, and you might just avoid becoming the disappointment that your father believes you to be."

" _Mycroft!"_ Sherlock's shout is probably loud enough to be heard on the next floor. He manages to rip the Velcro off the other wrist before using both of his hands to shove himself up into a sitting position and unleashing a tirade: " _Stop bullying him_! He's just an innocent bystander. I needed a witness to make my point to the hospital; if you want to get pissed off at someone, then do it with me."

"Oh, I am more than annoyed with you, brother mine."

Sherlock rolls his eyes dramatically. "For once, just accept the fact that this was an accident, plain and simple. It's not a sign of anything more sinister than my being in the wrong place at the wrong time so you can put a lid right now on your incessant conspiracy theories. The sooner you leave and let me get back to normal, the more likely it is that I will agree to stay in this wretched hospital, accept the treatment and get back to my coursework."

"Sherlock, you're going to need to be looked after, back at Parham; I can organise a suspension for this term. Mrs Walters will look after you while a private physical therapist gets you back on your feet. When your leg has recovered and you can walk again, then you can come back. After Christmas at the earliest, I'd estimate."

"No, that isn't necessary. You don't get to decide this. I can manage on my own without your interference. Just go away. _NOW!"_

Victor sees the strain of being upright is taking its toll; the staccato sentences must be a sign of the pain that he can read on the boy's face. He has enough experience with minor rugby injuries to be able to guess what he must be suffering, if he's not accepted any medications.

The same thought must have occurred to the brother who comes back to the end of the bed. "How can I trust you, Sherlock? You have no idea how difficult it's going to be hobbling about for six weeks. How are you going to deal with the pain? Your usual approach? Hmmm? The temptation will be there to self-medicate, and you _know_ where that will end up. Shall I call Doctor Cohen now, for an emergency consult? It might save us all a lot of time and bother."

"Shut up. That was then; this is now. This'll be a good chance to show you how wrong you are to always assume the worst. I've managed the past year without incident, so just piss off back to London and leave me to my recovery." Sherlock makes a shooing gesture with both hands, and promptly collapses back down on the bed. Panting a bit from the exertion, he manages to add: "The longer you stay here, the less likely I am to let them see to me. So go."

Victor watches as the older Holmes seems to realise that an impasse has been reached.

"If I leave, you will take the pain relief on offer?" Mycroft asks.

"If you leave, I swear I will, but only if you promise to leave me alone. Stay and I won't."

"That's an odd sort of emotional blackmail."

"I hardly need to tell you who taught me… Now _LEAVE!"_ This time it is less a shout than a cry of pain; Sherlock's face is sweaty, his breath coming in pants.

Mycroft's frown is now tinged with concern. Perhaps seeing his brother in obvious pain but utterly determined to continue it unless he gets his way is enough to make him back down.

He turns his attention away from the bed and focuses again on Victor. "Given you are responsible for putting him in this hospital bed, I am going to make it your responsibility to keep him in it until he is well enough to leave. If he tries to escape _again_ , then I will ensure that you will answer for it."

Sherlock groans. "Stop trying to recruit him as a babysitter. I don't need anyone's help."

Having now seen the state he's in with his own eyes, Victor disagrees and decides that helping actually is something he could do. He has no plans for the evening because Chloe is still away. So, he nods. "I'll stay and I'll see that he does, too. You will just have to take my word for it. You can leave now, like he wants."

As if he is having second thoughts, Mycroft Holmes retorts sceptically: "Rather trusting of you. Loyalty is foolish, given you don't know him. You have no idea what you are letting yourself in for, Mister Trevor. This could be the worst mistake of your life."

"Then it's mine to make, and I do so willingly. Unless you intend prolonging his pain by disturbing the peace in this ward some more, I suggest you go now."

This earns him a rather intense stare. But whatever the brother sees in Victor seems to be enough. With a huff of annoyance and without a backward glance at the bed, Mycroft Holmes pushes the curtain aside and leaves.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five: Surveillance**

As soon as his brother leaves, Sherlock closes his eyes; the confrontation has taken a lot out of him. The bruise on the side of his face feels nasty and swollen, and his right ankle is throbbing. But, that is nothing compared to the jackhammer of pain ripping through his left leg.

"I don't get it," Victor muses, "The last time I saw you, you weren't bruised and bashed around the head. Now, your face looks like someone collapsed a scrum and you were at the bottom. What happened?"

Sherlock has to decide how much to admit to his convenient witness. It's only fair that he unveils a little bit. After all, thanks to Victor being present, Mycroft had backed off.

So, he answers, "Idiot security guard was a bit… over-enthusiastic about making me stay." He keeps his eyes closed. The pain is making his sensory issues with the fluorescent light fixture over the bed worse than before.

"How could you manage to even think of getting out of bed after surgery like that?"

Sherlock has no intention of explaining the stupidity of his brother, nor his insistence that he goes through rehabilitation. Some things need to be kept _private._ He hears the student come closer to the bed, presumably to take a closer look at the leg in its sling. Sherlock does not open his eyes, just mutters: "Needs must, Trevor."

Victor snorts. "How public school of you. Trevor's my last name. I'm Victor, and if I'm getting threatened by your brother, I think we should be on first name terms, _Sherlock_."

That comment makes him open his eyes, even the one that is bloodshot and surrounded by bruising. To conceal how oddly pleasant it had felt to hear Victor call him by his preferred first name, he gives what he hopes is an annoyed look, followed by the comment: "You don't have to stay; I am sure you have more important things to do. He's just being a prat. You can ignore him."

Something stubborn seems to settle in the features of the young, blond man. "I do what I say I will do. That means I'm going to stay for the rest of visiting hours. And, you are going to stay put."

Just his luck to have fallen into the clutches of a man of principle. As far as Sherlock is concerned, the witness had done his duty – seen Mycroft off. Now, he can go.

So as not to encourage him to stay, Sherlock decides to feign sleep. It isn't easy, because the pain is now really excruciating and it takes every ounce of his concentration to keep from groaning. He wants to give the student no excuse to feel obliged to stay, but the longer he waits, the more he realises that he is going to have to give in and take some pain relief soon. That raises a fear that Mycroft will take advantage of him being asleep to get them to administer deeper sedation; then, he could be moved to one of those private clinics with electronic locks and more malleable staff that his brother is so very fond of.

While he is wrestling with the conundrum, the nurse returns, with a young woman doctor and a hospital administrator in tow.

"Where's Mister Holmes?" Nurse Stevens sounds surprised.

Sherlock has spent the time with his eyes closed, but he opened them as soon as the curtain was pulled aside. "The prat has left, tail tucked between his legs. Victor and I have seen him off."

The doctor steps around the nurse and closer to the bed. "Sherlock, I'm Doctor Stacey Barton; Nurse Stevens here says that you are in need of a psych evaluation for the purposes of competency, as requested by your orthopaedist."

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "I am not on drugs, and the post-surgery analgesics have worn off long ago. I am on antibiotics," he waves at the IV pole behind him, "and fully aware of the medical procedure I have just undergone. I am able to make decisions about my treatment for this physical injury. And, before you ask, I'm not looking for a self-discharge at the moment, nor am I going to disappear. I am likely to do so tomorrow or the day after, however, depending on how much of this wretched hospital I can tolerate. So, I think that answers any questions you may have about capacity."

The red-haired woman nods and smirks. "Well, given you aren't hallucinating or in need of psychotropic drugs, you know what I am going to say." Barton looks pointedly at the Nurse.

Sherlock matches her smirk with a carefully curated smile designed to put her at ease. He doesn't always pick the right one, and the pain is messing with his concentration, so it takes all the energy he can muster to try his best to appear co-operative and harmless. "Yes, indeed, it was a wasted trip for you. Sorry – not my choice. My brother is such a pain that he usually gets his way when he throws his weight around, but you aren't needed this time. Who's the civilian behind you?"

"I'm the hospital's legal manager." This administrator is a harassed looking middle-aged man in thick spectacles, wearing a white, short-sleeved shirt and tie. It's the fact that he's carrying a clipboard rather than a stethoscope that betrays the fact that he is that breed of NHS manager that Mycroft thinks has proliferated through the service like rabbits.

The legal manager peers first at Victor and then Sherlock, before saying: "So, there is no question here of an assault and battery charge?"

Sherlock shakes his head.

"And you don't need me to tell anyone that you are able to make your own decisions about medication?"

Sherlock shakes his head again, even though doing so hurts. "No. The idiot who wouldn't take my word for it has now left. So long as that fact is noted in my file here, you too can go away. In fact, I would appreciate it if you did, and as swiftly as possible."

The man mutters about patients wasting his time and beats a hasty retreat, holding the curtain open for the psychiatrist. Nurse Stevens turns away from the bed to follow.

Sherlock's resolve crumbles. "Wait. Nurse… about that pain relief."

"Changed your mind?" She sounds surprised.

"I'm not an idiot, and this leg hurts like hell. So, pain relief would be welcome, provided it's on conditions that you have to put in my notes what I am about to tell you, so that when you go off shift, whoever takes over knows the arrangement." In a voice that sounds like he is giving dictation, Sherlock says: "I hereby do not give my consent to being given any medication other than antibiotics while I am asleep, or to being moved to another facility by my brother in that state." He decides that his fear of Mycroft being an idiot outweighs his reluctance to have company at this stage. "Oh, one other condition. Victor has to watch that you don't try to give me something I don't want, and to stay to make sure my brother doesn't try anything funny."

The Ward sister smiles. "That's okay by me." She turns to Victor. "Are you willing?"

"Of course I'll stay. Until I get thrown out at the end of visitor's hours."

The Nurse's brow wrinkles. "The afternoon session ended ten minutes ago. You can come back between seven and eight in the evening."

With a sigh, Sherlock snatches the metal pan with the syringe off the table and keeps it out of her reach. "Then the deal's off. He stays put and guards my back, or I'm out of here."

Hands on hips again, she glares. "Patients are not allowed to change the rules. And you're going nowhere, young man."

Victor starts laughing. "Have you met this patient? I thought you were the one who said he habitually absconds. Unless you want to pull a security guard off his regular duties and put him in a chair beside this bed, then you'd best put up with me. I promise not to disturb whatever things you get up to over the gap between now and seven, but really… I think this is a sensible arrangement, given what he's already shown he will do if you piss him around. I'm a rugby second row forward – I can keep him in that bed."

She thinks about it. The silence lengthens.

"Please? It will spare you the hassle of trying to explain to the doctors that he's wrecked their work by trying to escape again," Victor pleads.

 _I couldn't have said it better myself,_ Sherlock thinks, and wonders if the student's charm will succeed.

Finally, she throws up her hands in exasperation. "Oh, all right. Anything to get some peace and quiet around here."

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Victor watches the next steps carefully, given what he has promised. After the nurse shows Sherlock the bottle and faces him down on the dosage _("What?! Ten milligrams wouldn't even dull the pain of a papercut!"_ ), the nurse administers an injection.

When the morphine kicks in, Sherlock's face relaxes, and his breathing becomes more even. He closes his eyes again, giving Victor hope that if Sherlock manages to sleep, he would be able to leave at some point with a clear conscience, perhaps before nine o'clock.

Victor will have to make sure the night shift ward nurse knows what has been agreed. He doesn't mind talking to the women staff; in fact, it's something that he knows he is rather good at. He will add in a bit of charm to make sure that whoever takes over the duty of keeping an eye on the patient knows how to reach him, in case he's needed. Chloe says his 'puppy dog' expression is enough to melt any woman's heart; he hopes so, because if Sherlock does somehow miraculously bolt from the hospital, he needs to be the first one who is called. He doesn't want to have to explain to Sherlock's brother how he broke the promise he'd just made to the man. There is something decidedly strange about Mycroft Holmes, and Victor doesn't want to test just how far the man was bluffing with his threats.

He quietly asks Nurse Stevens to be sure to tell the night shift that he'd be staying after seven while she swaps an empty bag of IV fluids for a fresh one.

"Fine; if you're going to break the rules, why not just stay the whole bloody night?" She glances at the recumbent form on the bed. "Before you fall asleep, do you want to see that other man between seven and eight? Or should I tell him to come back tomorrow?"

Sherlock's eyes snap open. "What other man?"

"The one whose been sitting in chairs down the corridor. According to the security guard who found you down the hall at the fracture clinic, he's the one who told him you'd left the ward before the surgery. Maybe the college has sent someone."

Sherlock groans. "You don't understand the depths of my brother's mistrust. If he can't chain me to the bed, he will have posted some sort of minder. What's he look like?"

"Late 30's, average sort of height. Why don't I just go ask him?"

"No. If he's one of my brother's people, then he won't tell you the truth."

Nurse Stevens put her hands on her hips again and said with some exasperation. "Do you have any idea how paranoid that sounds? Maybe I should request that psych evaluation again."

Sherlock starts to struggle up to a sitting position, forming an angry response, when Victor decides enough was enough.

"Relax and sit tight. I'll go check him out."

Outside the ward, the waiting area is very small; only half a dozen plastic chairs and a side table with a few beat up magazines. There is an older woman with an infant in her lap; perhaps a babysitter or a grandmother keeping an eye on a child, as the mother arrives down the corridor, probably from visiting a patient.

Victor's eye is drawn to the only other person in the waiting area. Standing up, looking out of the window at the failing light is a man wearing a biker's leather jacket. Victor realises that he's seen the man before, downstairs in the A&E waiting area. He'd been there yesterday when Victor had followed Sherlock back into the department after they'd been apprehended in the car park. And he remembers that the bloke had been on the phone at the time, watching when the wheelchair was pushed back in through the doors to the treatment area.

As he walks straight up to him, the man turns, having seen his reflection in the glass.

"Been waiting long?" Victor tries to keep the question from sounding peremptory. "I saw you yesterday, in the Emergency Department; here to see Sherlock Holmes, are you?"

There is a pleasant smile of confusion, "You must be mistaking me for someone else. I'm here to see my mother-in-law. She fractured her hip yesterday; they say she's doing well, but the wife worries, so I thought I would stop in to see her."

There is something about the answer that feels wrong to Victor – had it come a shade too quickly? A bit smooth, almost rehearsed? He wonders if Sherlock's paranoia is wearing off on him.

He takes in the well-defined musculature under the black T-shirt and the fact that the man's weight is balanced over the balls of his feet. Beneath a façade of polite confusion, he looks ready for some sort of challenge. Victor knows his own size and build often makes other men feel intimidated, but this is someone who is sizing him up just as much as he is being scrutinised.

Victor hesitates. It is quite likely that there is indeed an elderly victim of a fall in the women's side of the Ward; all he's seen here is the male ward patients. If he causes a scene and this person really has nothing to do with Sherlock, then Victor might get ejected from the hospital for confronting him aggressively. But, if this person is spying on them, set there by Mycroft's brother, well that just annoys the hell out of him. He has given his word, and so has Sherlock. Why isn't that enough?

"So, yesterday you just _happened_ to see him leave the ward and told a security guard? That's what the nurse said. Why would you do that?"

The man shakes his head and shrugs. "I'm just a bystander. I didn't want to get involved, but it didn't look right, him going out like that. It was clear he wasn't fit enough. So, I told someone whose job it is to look after patients."

Victor isn't buying it. He is a good five inches taller than the man, so he takes advantage of the difference to loom a little over the visitor. "Who are you and why does Sherlock Holmes matter to you?" His question is pointed and has just a hint of menace in it.

"Hey, I don't know him from…."

Before the man can continue his protestations, Victor decides that he's had enough of the charade. "Actually, I don't care who you are, or whatever fake name you give me. Sherlock doesn't want you here, and you can tell Mycroft Holmes to go to hell. If you don't leave voluntarily now, I'll tell the security staff that you are a stalker who's been hanging around him. They'll eject you from the hospital – permanently."

A flash of steel lights the man's eyes and the pleasant façade drops away. "Don't do that. I'm not the enemy here; I'm just making sure that the boy is safe; that's my _job_. And if you do think of yourself as a friend of his, then you'll say nothing about this to him and let me carry it out without interfering. When you go home after visitor's hours, I will keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn't try to disappear again."

"You're not a bodyguard; he doesn't know you. So, what …? A private detective? Hired to snoop on him? Why is his brother so obsessed that he'd do something like that?"

"You have no idea what you've walked into here. And it's probably best you don't know. Unlike the hospital staff here, I _know_ you only met him by accident yesterday. Go back to playing rugby, Mister Trevor; you don't want to get between Mycroft Holmes and his brother. Not a healthy place to be."

The fact that the man knows his name is what tips the balance for Victor. "Piss off. Visitors' hours ended fifteen minutes ago, so clear off now. Leave now or I will call the security here and get you ejected."

The man's spine straightens and he holds his ground. "What gives _you_ the right to stay? If both of us are gone, just how long do you think the patient will stay put? Does it matter to you that he once spent seven months addicted to cocaine, living homeless on the streets of London because his brother couldn't find him? I've been on this case since term started, just to make sure he doesn't disappear again."

That shocks Victor. He hesitates, and the man continues, "Just so you do know what you're dealing with, let me tell you that two years ago, when he was in hospital, he smashed a window on the seventh floor and tried to launch himself out of it. You have _no_ idea about Sherlock Holmes, so best leave taking care of him to the experts."

To buy himself time to think through what has just been said to him, Victor asks, "How do I know you aren't making these things up? Who are you?"

The man reaches into his leather jacket and pulls out a wallet, flipping it open to take out a business card. He hands it to Victor who scans it quickly:

 _Robert Dryden_

 **Research Associates**

(Forensic Private Investigators, Private Detectives)

8 Bulmer Mews  
Notting Hill Gate London W11 3NZ

Perhaps this is the reason why Mycroft Holmes had known that he was a rugby player; he begins to realise that the private detective must have investigated the attack, and the dog, as well as him, since yesterday. _Bullseye, you have no idea what trouble you've put me in._ Victor decides to pocket the card, while he glances back up the corridor to the ward.

Sensing his indecision, the private detective presses his advantage. "Just go back in there and tell him I'm nobody, a mistaken identity. I have permission from the hospital to remain here, by the way, despite visitor's hours being over until seven. And by now the boy's medical files will have been sent here, so they won't mind the additional security. You can go whenever you want to, in fact. No need to stay."

"I gave him my word. And nothing you've said can change that."

Victor turns on his heel and walks back towards the ward, trying to process what he has just learned. The image painted of a homeless, suicidal drug addict does not match what he has seen of Sherlock— a highly intelligent self-aware, logical young student, whose sense of fair play and justice meant that he was not angry at either Chloe's dog or him for being the idiot unable to control it. Despite the obvious pain he was in, Sherlock Holmes just wanted to get out of underneath his brother's thumb. None of it makes much sense, but then he realises he knows almost nothing about the victim of Bullseye's bite, apart from this first impression. He knows that his original concern had been rather selfish – how to stop the victim from prosecuting – but now, it's like he's a bit part player in one of Chloe's favourite soap operas. He's the horror-struck bystander being sucked into the slow-motion train wreck that is the relationship between the two Holmes brothers, neither of whom he really understands.

Sherlock is sitting up again waiting for him as Victor pulls the curtain and then closes it behind him. There is a silence as he tries to figure out what to say, all the while having those piercing, oddly coloured eyes looking at him as if he were transparent.

As Victor opens his mouth, Sherlock interrupts. "Don't believe whatever he's said to you."

That makes Victor stop and then smile. "How do you know what he said?"

Sherlock throws himself back to a prone position – a dramatic gesture that must have hurt. "Because the look on your face says you aren't on my side anymore."

Victor walks over to the bed and hands Sherlock the business card. "He's a private eye. Been watching you, obviously for some time. Knew all about the incident and gave me the edited highlights of why your brother hired him."

There is a more penetrating look from Sherlock. "Some of which you now believe, but not enough to follow through with what he asked you to do – which was to say nothing to me about who he is."

Victor nods. "Yeah, that about sums it up. Nothing he said changes my mind about being here, if you want me to stay. On the other hand, his being here says that you probably _need_ me to stay, just in case he gets any ideas about doing those things you said your brother would do. Or in case you decide to do something stupid like try to get away from here when you need have that leg elevated. So, it's up to you. Do you want me to go?"

"Stay."

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The next day, Victor pays the price of that decision with another chewing out by his Rugby coach. He'd turned up half way through the morning practice, after spending most of the night at the hospital. Back at his flat by two o'clock, he'd managed to oversleep the next morning— without Chloe there to roust him out of bed, it was always a risk that he won't hear the alarm set for eight.

This time, he gets his comeuppance in front of the rest of the first team squad, and it ends up in a threat of suspension.

" _Another_ missed practice? You know the rules, Trevor. The captain is no different from anyone else on the squad. It's three strikes and you're out; a week's suspension and you're on the bench with someone else handed the captain's role. You've got one more chance."

Not that he'd regretted staying. Victor had been true to his word to Mycroft Holmes, making sure that he kept Sherlock from trying another escape. When he left at one in the morning, the patient was sound asleep. After leaving instructions with the night nurse on the ward to contact him if anyone tried to medicate the patient further or to in anyway interfere, Victor gave her his phone number and got the assurance he needed. When he walked back down the darkened corridor past the waiting area, he exchanged glances with the Private Detective. "You know the rules, Mister Dryden- and so do the staff here. No funny business."

The PI had raised his hands in mock surrender to him. "Truce."

Victor had left, feeling that he'd done the best he could of an extraordinary situation.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o

"Your next assignment for the seminar is to come to terms with the law surrounding enterprise zones. This qualifies as an exam hint, but I am going to take the risk because if I don't, a lot of you are just going to put this into the _too-hard-to-understand_ box and hope you get away with it. You won't, so crack the books and get a grip. Land economy is where you will be expected to make sense of what is too excruciatingly boring for your clients to come to terms with- that's why they are going to hire you."

The lecturer is a pint-sized grey haired woman of ferocious intellect that scares the bejeezus out of the final year students. An import from the Law Faculty, she has not heard (or chooses not to acknowledge) the fact that most students reading land economy are not the brightest minds in the student body*.

Even though he knows he should be concentrating on the afternoon lecture, Victor fulfils the stereotype when his mind wanders off back to the events of the past few days. He is still surprised about how and why he has managed to allow himself to become inextricably bound up in the young man's fate. He's been back to the hospital twice since, trying in part to make sense of it all. What at first was pure self interest in trying to make sure Chloe's dog wasn't banned had over the space of forty eight hours become something more important to him.

One of the reasons is just the whole _oddity_ of it all. There is something rather extraordinary about the utter determination of Sherlock Holmes to resist doing what everyone seems to want him to do. And what Victor has been told by others – hinted at by the brother, but made explicit by the private detective – just does not match up with his first impressions of the boy.

Victor has always been a good judge of character. He can tell in a crowded room the difference between the social climbers and the good time boys, who are just going through the motions of getting a degree before inheriting a job or an estate. He might be willing to go along with his father's ambitions for him, but that's more out of respect for his father than any particular interest of his own. . His father has had to raise his only son without the help of a mother, and that has earned him that respect. He trusts that his father has his best interests at heart. He recognises the advantages that he has had in his life, compared with his father's rough upbringing in the Australian Outback, and wants to make sure that the man's sacrifices are not wasted. He has always been brought up to respect his responsibilities to do what is seen by others as the right thing to do. He knows that he should just be grateful that he isn't going to be sued, the dog is okay and leave the Holmes brothers to each other. That's what his father would say, if he'd asked him for advice.

And yet…

Almost from the first moment he clapped eyes on Bullseye's victim, Victor could tell that Sherlock is different. The labels of _autistic_ and _drug addict_ still rattle around in his head, echoing along all the other stuff. The difference is disturbing—the fierce sense of what Victor can only call the young man's _integrity_ sits oddly with what he has been told. The easy way out for Sherlock would have been to deflect his brother's anger onto Victor and the dog, and yet the young man had done exactly the opposite—done everything he could to protect him and the dog from the consequences of Victor's lapse of judgment.

It should bother him more what the coach has said about him failing to live up to his responsibilities. But it doesn't. He realises that in that one word—"stay"—uttered by Holmes he gained something more important than the praise of his coach for sticking to the rules and being the role model everyone expected him to be. He's not entirely sure why, but it is.

So he goes back the next day. After rugby practice, when the rest of the squad demobs to the Red Bull Pub at the end of the road, he gets on his bike and heads to Trinity College. The porter there tells him that Holmes' director of studies is Doctor Stephen Blay.

Casting a rather jaundiced eye over Victor's muddy joggers, the porter sniffs. "But, the BP Professor of Organic Chemistry is not likely to be available to any so-and-so student who walks in from the street; you'd best book an appointment, and his secretary isn't in until tomorrow morning."

The man's brusque manner confirms what Victor has always thought about Trinity being a college for stuck-up arrogant toffs. For once, he decides to take the risk of short-cutting the proper procedures. Instead of following the Porter's advice, he walks into the quad, climbs the staircase XI to the second floor office of the professor, and boldly knocks on the oak panelled door.

"Enter."

Victor has never been one to seek the attention of the teachers. He sits in the middle of the lecture rooms, pays attention, gets his assignments in on time, and generally does as little to attract attention as possible. He doesn't grandstand by asking questions, or try to get noticed by making contributions that make the academics remember him. The only time he has seen his own director of studies at Jesus is the obligatory once a term meeting which he endures for the sake of form, trying to say as little as possible. He isn't a show-off. At Jesus, all they seem to care about is that he has been elected Captain of the Blues Rugby team. So long as he gets passing marks, they aren't concerned about his academic success.

So, to be on the other side of this imposing door in Trinity has taken some guts. He rationalises it; _it's not about me._

When he walks in, a rather stout man with thinning hair and a formidable pair of thick glasses is sat at a large wooden desk. There is a white board behind him that is totally covered in obscure symbols and what looks to be mathematical formulae. The professor looks up from a pile of papers, and then a frown forms. He lifts his reading glasses up his forehead and peers at him. "You're not Stemson. He's due here…" Doctor Blay glances at his watch, "….three minutes ago. Who are you? I don't think you are one of my students, are you?"

If there is a tinge of annoyance in that question, Victor chooses to ignore it. "I'm not, sir. My name is Victor Trevor and I am here on behalf of one of your supervisory students—Sherlock Holmes."

The man's eyebrows rise. "Why?"

Victor swallows. "I assume you know he is in hospital, sir? The nursing staff said that they had informed the college and because you are his director of studies, surely you've been told?"

"Yes, of course. I've spoken with his brother; I know all about that. What I don't know is why _you_ are here."

"Sherlock asked me this morning to collect his project proposal from you. He said that for some reason there'd be a delay in getting your formative feedback to him." Victor is being diplomatic. What Sherlock had actually said was that the professor was useless—too focused on his own research to care about teaching, and that the man was an utter shambles. Looking at the chaos of papers on the desk and the shelves behind, Victor could see some justice in that comment.

The academic's frown deepens. "There's no rush. A most unfortunate accident, so I've been told. His brother said he will be applying for a suspension of studies this term until he recovers; he's going to take him home to Sussex where he can be looked after during his recuperation. I've told him that medical extenuating circumstances are sure to be accepted. He doesn't need his proposal back until at least Christmas."

Victor is shocked into silence for a moment. _The bastard._ Whatever Mycroft said at the hospital, it was clear that he was still manoeuvring in the background. That makes him angry enough to blurt out, "No. Sherlock is _definitely_ staying this term. He's sent me to get the proposal and some books so he can keep working. He should be discharged at the end of the week, and he intends getting back to the lab straight away." He lifts his chin a bit. "His brother is not your student; Sherlock is and he's made the decision." He hopes his tone isn't too impertinent.

The middle-aged man is now eying him rather suspiciously. "How do you know that? Who are you again?"

"Victor Trevor; I'm a final year student at Jesus. Sherlock is my friend, and he asked me to come her and collect his proposal."

The professor tilts his chair back in surprise, which is then replaced by the hints of an astonished smile. Victor realises he is being studied rather intently, and can't help but feel the first flush of embarrassment creeping up his neck onto his cheeks. His blond features always show a blush; Chloe says it is endearing, but Victor has always been a bit ashamed of it.

"Well, that is certainly an extraordinary thing. Holmes having a _friend_ is more surprising than the news that he'd been attacked by a dog, or that he's determined to see the term out despite his injury."

"I don't know what you mean, sir."

The professor laughs, and then turns around to one of the bookshelves behind him to rummage about in a stack of papers. "Here it is!" He pulls a black folder out and returns to face Victor, handing over the folder. "I haven't had time to do anything more than give it a mark. If he wants feedback, he can talk to me. The only thing I can say is that he's going to have to work hard to catch up on the lab timetable; he's already lost a week."

Victor looks at the folder and then back at the professor. "Is that fair? How's he supposed to get started when you've not yet given him feedback?"

"Life isn't fair. My feedback won't matter."

There is a loud knock at the door, and the professor bellows: "Enter!"

A tall student walks in, obviously a post-graduate, possibly even a PhD student from his age. Trying to understand Professor Blay's rather cryptic comment, Victor starts towards the door but then hesitates. "Is the proposal any good, sir? I mean, if he's not got an idea of how you want him to improve it, and you say he hasn't got a chance of completing it in time, then shouldn't he take the extenuating circumstances and get an extension?"

Blay burst out laughing again. "You're not a chemistry student, are you, Trevor?"

"No, sir."

"Well, if you were, you wouldn't have asked that question. The whole of the undergraduate chemistry cohort knows about Holmes by now. Don't tell him I said this, but that proposal is confirmation of what I have always suspected. If he wasn't such a pillock that he alienates every one of his lecturers and all of his peers in the department—even the PhDs like Stemson here—Holmes is someone who might end up winning a Nobel Prize someday. Your friend is a bloody genius, and if he is able to deliver on that project by the end of January, he'll be well on his way to proving it."

Notes:

* Land Ekkers are traditionally thought of as pretty stupid. For years, the undergraduate degree was called "the duffer's degree" and a lot of sportsmen took it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: Proximity**

* * *

" _(1) An order under paragraph 5 of Schedule 32 to the M1_ _Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980 (designation of enterprise zone) may provide that the enterprise zone authority shall be the local planning authority for the zone for such purposes of the planning Acts and in relation to such kinds of development as may be specified in the order."_

Victor sighs and frowns at the text in the book, and then at the scrawl in his notebook. Section six of the Town and Country Planning Act of 1990 is proving to be a bitch. To make matters worse, he's having more trouble concentrating on his reading than usual, thanks to the noise of the television.

It's an absolutely horrid night out: cold, lashing rain that the forecaster on the six o'clock news had threatened would turn into sleet before midnight. Rugby practice this afternoon had been an absolute mud-bath, and Victor's muscles are sore. The wind had been blowing a bloody gale, and none of the line out throws had gone straight as a result. It makes him cranky to have to be studying but he's already in so much trouble with the coach that he doesn't want to add academic failure into the picture. So, over the past ten days, he's had his nose to the proverbial grindstone, both on the rugby pitch and in the classroom. If his marks drop this term, he might end up benched, even if he does manage to repair the damage to his reputation for commitment.

All in all, things have returned to normal over the past week. Chloe has come back from her sister's hen party just over a week ago and is still bending his ear about how wonderful Ibiza is and that she might well book her own hen night there when they will finally get around to setting a date.

He hasn't heard from Sherlock since sitting vigil at his bedside. He had turned up at the hospital on the day before Chloe was due back, only to be told that Holmes had been discharged. Once he'd recounted the story of it all to her, she'd shrugged and said, "Well, Bullseye's back safe with Sophia now, so none of that matters."

She is probably right and Sherlock Holmes is no longer his responsibility, but Victor had still bicycled by Burrell's Fields before Saturday's practice match to check up on him. but he wasn't in, so he'd left a note wishing for a speedy recovery and saying again how sorry he was about the incident. No reply has arrived.

Victor tries to focus on the text again. Chloe has been snuggling next to him on the sofa for the past two hours, while he has been trying to read.

 _(2)Without prejudice to the generality of paragraph 15(1) of that Schedule (modification of orders by the Secretary of State), an order under that paragraph may provide that the enterprise zone authority shall be the local planning authority for the zone for different purposes of the planning Acts or in relation to different kinds of development."_

He has to re-read it twice while stifling a yawn. Given the horrid weather, he'd decided to stay in, rather than go to the library, but the sounds from the TV are getting annoying, making him wonder if he's made the wrong decision. It's after eleven pm now and he's nowhere near finishing the chapter that he promised himself he would tackle before heading to bed.

In the next moment, a pair of feet land in his lap, dislodging the notebook and, as he reaches for it, the Wilks textbook slides off the sofa and closes with a resounding thud.

"Chloe! Now look what you've done! I've just lost my place."

"Give those books a rest, Vic. You really should be watching this, luv. It's riveting stuff."

"I have work to do. Unlike you." It grates on him that Chloe's approach to her degree in English Literature seems to be lackadaisical at best.

"Don't be a spoilsport. This _is_ research. EastEnders is continuing the tradition of the Dickensian penny dreadful, and is hugely popular as a result."

Victor sighs. His fiancée's dissertation is on Modern British Television Soaps as a Literary Genre; and more than once he has wondered just how it was her supervisor had given her license to watch hours and hours of the most boring television – it seemed a terrible waste of time. There is a huge pile of videos beside the TV; she records them all and then watches half the night. They've argued about it on numerous occasions.

Victor's own attitude towards his degree is simple – his father wants university to lead straight to a job that will suit his son's prospects. It is a utilitarian approach, but not one shared by his girlfriend. He's been wondering how she will ever find a job after graduation. "Are you thinking about becoming a scriptwriter or something?" he asks.

She pouts. "Of course not, silly. I'm going to be _your wife_ , the mother of your children. This is just for fun." She gives an off-hand wave of her hand at the television she had insisted on bringing to his flat when she moved in. The pearly pink nail polish on her manicured hand catches his eye, and glancing down at the feet in his lap, Victor realises that she has matching toenails.

"Be a dear, Vic and give them a rub. My feet are killing me tonight; ankles are all sore."

"Maybe if you wore sensible shoes it would make them hurt less."

She sticks out her tongue at him. "You sound like my nan. Platform boots are just so _right_ for me. Puts me up on that pedestal where I belong." Her attention goes back to the screen, where two actors seem to be arguing while standing on a staircase. She twiddles the end of her long blonde hair between two fingers, an unconscious habit now, born of a desire to straighten a natural wave. He's always liked the wave, but she usually uses a hair straightener to iron it out.

He sighs. Sometimes, just sometimes, Victor wonders how the hell he'd ever got engaged to such a strange creature. Her shoes are just the latest manifestation of her feminine mystery; he just cannot understand why anyone would pay such extortionate amounts just to be tortured by a pair of boots.

As if she could hear him thinking, Chloe doesn't shift her eyes from the screen but says, "And they cost a bomb, so if you think I've just going to leave them in the closet, you can think again. I have my fashion standards, you know."

And there it is. The money thing, the reason why their families are so keen to make this match. His family has the money; hers has ' _the breeding_ ', as his father keeps describing it— a family history going back to the roots of East Anglian aristocracy. Chloe had once explained to Victor the challenges of growing up with the expectations of the privileged classes but with none of the resources to live up to it. The country pile is essentially a ruin; her parents had moved to a modern home on the outskirts of Billericay, living on the rents of the estate farms that are still going. Instead of a public boarding school, she'd had to go to the ' _frightful_ ' comprehensive school in town. To avoid being bullied, she had become the quintessential Essex girl – to her mother's horror. But, she had been clever enough to get the marks to apply into her mother's old alma mater, Cambridge's Girton College.

Victor's engagement to her last summer had been a county event of the season, thanks to his father's insistence at splashing his money around.

A tube of very expensive foot cream is dumped in his lap, and he knows that he is going to have to talk to her again about the overdraft that he is running up these days, most of which seems to disappear into her closet and onto her dressing table. His father is likely to agree to an increase in Victor's living allowance if it's to keep Chloe happy, but he hates the idea of having to ask for such a thing again this Christmas.

He twists the top off and squeezes a bit of L'Occitane's Shea Butter Foot Cream onto his hands and starts rubbing. There is a particularly loud bit of shouting on the TV, and he looks first at the actors and then at Chloe, who is enthralled. "What's going on?"

She rolls her eyes up. "Brain like a sieve, no wonder you can't remember what you're reading. I told you yesterday; Mary is back on her feet but Phil is finding her being an uninvited houseguest more than a little annoying. He just told Conor that this arrangement can't go on – Mary will have to find somewhere else to live. It's terribly exciting."

He shrugs. The goings-on around Albert Square are even more perplexing to him than the land tenant law.

He tries to concentrate on tending to Chloe's feet, but suddenly the doorbell buzzes

He looks back up at the screen, thinking that it has come from the television.

The buzzer goes again, and Chloe says, "Be a love and go answer it, will you? I'm busy." She lifts her feet off him as he stands up, and then puts them back down into the warm spot he's just vacated.

Their flat – Victor's flat, originally – is on Saxon Street, which is more a back alleyway than a proper street wedged between the garages of the flats on Lensfield Road and the side entrance to a new development. So, who the hell would be ringing their doorbell at this late hour, in the dark and the pouring rain? It had better not be for the upstairs studio flat overlooking the back garden; sometimes in the dark, people get the bells confused.

As Victor gets to the door, he calls back at Chloe, "You didn't order pizza or a take-away, did you?"

No answer from the little sitting room, probably because the volume on the TV seems to have been turned up the moment he left to answer the door. Annoyed, he throws open the door, ready to say that he's going to have to get his wallet from upstairs before he can pay for whatever Chloe has ordered.

The sight that greets him is so unexpected that for a moment he stands on the threshold and just stares.

On the pavement is a figure bent almost double, with rain coming down so hard that it is actually bouncing off a soaked jacket. In the dark, all Victor can see is long dark hair plastered flat against a face that is turned down, looking into the torrent of water pouring down the gutter. It is the sight of two metal crutches that makes Victor think that some strange beggar has knocked on his door, of all the doors in this street. But, then the head lifts and he sees a pair of blue-green eyes he recognises.

"Holmes!?"

"Are you going to make me stay out here in the rain, or can I come in?" The young man's voice sounds hoarse but it's loud enough to carry over the noise of the torrential downpour.

Startled into action, Victor isn't sure whether to go out to help Sherlock in, or to stand back and let him get his crutches up over the threshold. After a moment's hesitation, he steps out just as Sherlock moves forward. In the narrow doorway, the two collide. Sherlock stumbles over the step up and Victor ends up entangled in the crutches, then making a grab at the sopping wet figure before he ends up in a heap on the floor.

Victor curses as he is spun around, ending up against the wall with his arms full of Sherlock who is fumbling around to get control of the crutches again. They slip from his forearms to clatter down to the black and white tiled floor, and his left foot, which had been bent at the knee, hits the ground.

There is a howl of pain and then Victor is shoved in the chest as Sherlock breaks free. "Get off me!"

"Christ, are you alright?"

Sherlock's hops across to the other side of the hall to lean heavily against the wall, eyes scrunched shut. He's obviously in pain, and Victor is mortified that he's been the one to cause it—again.

The sitting room door opens and Chloe comes out. "What the fuck is going on, Vic? You're making enough noise to wake the dead." She sees Sherlock, and a look of disgust crosses her face. "Who's this? Don't tell me you've opened the door to some street scum." She shakes her head. "I know you're a softie and all that, but if you don't get rid of him immediately, I'm calling the police."

"Stop it, Chloe. This is Sherlock Holmes."

"Who?"

"He's the one Bullseye took a bite out of."

Her eyes widen. "I thought you said he was a student."

"He is."

Her face says she doesn't believe him. "Dressed like _that_? He looks like a homeless beggar."

A hoarse baritone interjects, "While you two are playing twenty questions, I'm in pain here. Would you mind passing me those crutches, or am I going to have to lean against this wall forever?"

As a blast of cold air comes in the open door, Chloe hugs her pink mohair sweater tight. "Close the door, Vic; you're letting all the heat out."

Victor slams the door, picks up the aluminium crutches and hands them back to Sherlock, who slips his forearms back into the sockets and stands up properly again, with his left leg bent at ninety degrees. Victor can see that the left trouser leg has been cut to accommodate a plaster cast; bare toes are peeping out the rather dirty, grey end of the plaster. _He must be freezing._

"Jeez," Chloe ezclaims, "Just look at the damp patch on the wallpaper; and, you're making a mess on the floor."

"Need to sit down," Sherlock says in a strained voice.

"Not on the sofa you won't; you'll ruin it." Chloe turns around to face her fiancé. "Vic, he's leaking wet. And what's he here for, anyway? I thought you said he'd been taken care of."

She turns back to Sherlock and puts on a stern face. "If you think you can come back here and threaten us now, just forget it. Done and dusted. The dog is no longer here."

"Chloe, shut up. That's not why he's here. Go get a towel from the bathroom upstairs." Victor uses his captain's voice, the one that he uses to get through to a recalcitrant team mate.

Chloe huffs, but she does go up the stairs to the first floor.

"Can you make it into the kitchen?" Victor asks their soaked guest. "There's a chair there, and you can drip without fear." He points the way past the stairs to the back of the flat.

Without a word, Sherlock thumps down the hallway, using his crutches to carry the weight of his left leg. His right shoe squelches and leaves a damp mark on the tiles. Victor almost winces at the sight as he goes hobbling unsteadily towards the back of the flat.

Victor follows him quietly. At the back of the house, the end wall had been removed and a conservatory extension added to allow a proper kitchen area. The rain is beating down on the glass roof as Sherlock grabs one of the breakfast bar stools and collapses onto it, closing his eyes in relief.

Victor goes to the kitchen sink to fill the kettle and plugs it in. "So, why _are_ you here?" He says it quickly but quietly, to make sure that Chloe doesn't overhear the question. He grabs two mugs from the drainer and then puts in a bit of milk from a pint taken from the fridge.

"Any port in a storm," is the muttered response.

While Victor is trying to make sense of that, Chloe comes back down the hallway, bearing a fluffy, white bath towel. She eyes Sherlock suspiciously. Rather than handing it to him, she makes a point of putting it on the counter where he can't reach.

"I'm going back to the television; I have to watch the latest Emmerdale ep tonight." Without a backward glance, she marches off.

Victor has been rummaging in the cupboard for the tea pot, into which he stuffs a couple of tea bags, then pours in the boiling water from the kettle. "That needs to brew for a couple of minutes." He hands the towel over, shaking his head. "You're soaked to the skin. You need to get warm and dry, but a towel won't be enough. I'm going upstairs to get some clothes that you can change into."

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

As he hears Victor leave the kitchen, Sherlock finally manages to get the pain under control to the point where he can open his eyes. His left leg is on fire and the right one is throbbing, too; bearing all his weight on the bruised and lacerated ankle over the past week has made it very slow to heal. _Pathetic._

In a fit of disgust, he shoves his crutches away, sending them clattering up against the breakfast bar, wanting to take out some of his frustration on the stupid things. He is cold, wet and miserable, as well as highly embarrassed at having been forced to barge in like this.

He had never wanted to cross the path of the rugby player again. Victor Trevor had served his purpose – kept Mycroft's spy at bay and brought him things he needed from his college to stop his brain rotting from boredom while lying in that hospital bed. When Sherlock had finally been discharged after five days, he'd wanted nothing more than to put the whole wretched affair behind him. But, just as he'd told the boy, _needs must_.

A shiver grabs hold of his abdominal muscles and sets them to quivering uncontrollably. He's not sure if this is due just to the cold, or a combination of it and his anxiety. His wet clothes are pulling at his skin like some live animal with suckers; every movement sets off ripples of sensory overload. He feels impossibly trapped in them, as if the cloth is tightening around him like being shrink-wrapped in cellophane, and it makes it increasingly hard to breathe normally. Trying to use the towel to dry his face and hair, he scrubs vigorously in the hope of over-riding some of the other sensations. The sound of the kettle coming to a boil competes with the rain drumming on the glass roof; both conspire to drown out rational thought. He sinks his head down on the countertop and wishes he were anywhere but where he is.

Time elapses, but he has no sense of how long.

 _Irrelevant. Ignore. Focus. Distraction. Keep it together._

Whether it's minutes or hours doesn't matter when he is as far gone as this. The towel muffles his ears, so he can't make out the words when he realises that someone is talking to him. When he pulls it away, and opens his eyes, it is to the sight of Victor's concerned face only inches away from his. He pulls back in alarm and nearly topples off the stool, until Victor grabs him by the shoulders to steady him.

"Let _go_!" he hisses; physical pressure inflicted by another person is the last thing he needs right now. His nerves are sending so many different sensory signals that for a moment he is terrified that he's going to have a meltdown right in front of the youth.

He flails with his arms to get free. Victor releases him and steps back, saying something, but even as his ears register the sound, Sherlock knows that his brain is not able to make sense of the words. Not now that his anxiety has reached the point of no return.

Out of his peripheral vision, he can see that Victor's facial features are bunched up in what is likely to be concern, now even more so than before. Sherlock has learned over the years to recognise it in other people, because it is usually a sign that he's done something wrong. The annoyance of having to endure that expression which often leads to condescension and pity yet again tangles up his tongue and makes it harder for him to get a word out.

Finally, he manages to reconnect his brain and tongue enough to blurt, " _What_?"

"You weren't answering me. You alright?"

This time the words are understandable even if the full meaning is not, and Sherlock's own words are lost in his head, so he has to resort to giving a glare of annoyance. How can this person be so stupid?

Victor shakes his head. "Yeah, sorry. That's a stupid question. You arrive on the doorstep at nearly midnight, soaked through, can barely hobble down the hall, and then I ask if you are alright. You're not, that much is clear. What happened?"

Words are still not making the necessary connection between Sherlock's brain and his mouth, so all Sherlock can do is manage finally to stare directly at the blond youth.

Under the intensity of that gaze, Victor suddenly shifts away, moving to pour tea into the mug and hand it to him. Sherlock takes it gratefully, hugging it in his hands to try to get his frozen fingers back to life. The cup gives him something to look at, to avoid having to make direct eye contact, and most importantly: the warm, round shape gives his hands something to do, which helps with focus and trying to drain out all the excess energy and anxiety. The first sip warms his throat and then, suddenly, the words he's been searching for finally slide out."Chemistry project."

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Victor's face switching to bafflement. "What about it?"

He realises he must be blushing in embarrassment. He doesn't understand why, but he's gone from cold to boiling hot, and it can't just be the tea. For a moment, it's as if he's standing in the doorway watching himself and seeing what sort of an idiot he looks like as he blinks furiously. He reaches for some sort of social script to try and get himself going again. It's something that has always afflicted him; when he is at his most vulnerable, words just fail— they run away and hide. Sometimes he can't find them again for days and it's worse if there are witnesses to his defectiveness.

He smacks the mug down on the counter and is relieved that the sound of ceramic on stone clatters a hole through his paralysis. He isn't sure why, but the noise is enough that the dam breaks again and more speech pours out. "I've been at the Chemistry Department. It's two hundred meters from here. You do know that, don't you? How could you be so oblivious that you don't know what university buildings are at the end of your own street?"

Perhaps he is startled by the frantic rhythm of his speech after the stuttering silence, or maybe by the aggressive tone, but Victor's face is now in full frown. The student puts his own mug down gently and asks, "How did you know I live here?"

"Your college porter told me your address. I phoned them when I was discharged." Sherlock decides not to say that he'd been minded to thank Victor for his help in getting the chemistry project proposal out of the professor's clutches. He'd decided against it; no point to it, because the odds of every bumping into him again were 20,000 to one. He'd never met a land economy student in the first year of university, and it was unlikely he would again in the remaining two years, so why bother?

The young man is still staring at him, and that causes a spike of anxiety. He hides his distress by picking up his mug of tea again and taking a sip. Using his peripheral vision, Sherlock fixates on Victor's mouth, watching his lips move. A few seconds pass before his brain processes those movements and the sound they make into a coherent sentence: "What does the chemistry project have to do with you turning up in the middle of the night looking like you're half drowned?"

He can't refrain from another sigh of frustration. Deep breath, take a moment to find words again and then he's off again at the rate of knots: "I had to make up for lost time this is a complicated time elapsed series of experiments that need to be conducted every ten minutes over a six hour period to ensure there is a statistically valid sample the protocols are very exacting and cannot tolerate any deviations I've been working all day every day since I left the hospital and I needed to work nights too that lets me put in another two sets of six hour assays but the department closes at five." He knows that the staccato delivery sounds odd—even to his ears—but he can't find the grammar rules to verbalise punctuation.

That face belonging to Victor is still looking confused. Sherlock sighs yet again. He's not in the right frame of mind at the moment to deal with stupid people who cannot deduce the obvious, but it looks like he's going to have to try. He consciously slows everything down and takes a breath between phrases, "So, since Friday I've been hiding… in a supplies cupboard of the main biosynthesis lab… when the building closes… I come out after the security guard does his rounds... That way I could keep the experiment schedule going… every ten minutes over six hours. At this rate I would have caught up… by the end of the week."

"What happened tonight? Did you get chucked out?"

Sherlock nods, suddenly embarrassed at how obvious his failing must seem to someone so ordinary. He drains the last of the tea before managing to blurt out, "I was too slow because of the stupid crutches." He looks down at the wretched pieces of metal that are leaning up against the breakfast bar, as if they had betrayed him. "The guard heard me shutting the door."

"You in trouble then?"

Sherlock puts the empty mug down and wraps his arms around himself, trying to stop the shivering. "I told him that if he did report me, then he'd have to explain how his security is so bad that I could work unhindered in the lab without him knowing, and it would probably cost him his job. I convinced him I wasn't trying to steal anything, just trying to do some work. He searched my stuff and realised I was telling the truth, so he said he'd let me off with a warning this time. He wouldn't call a taxi; said it was my problem, and it would teach me not to break the rules. He just pushed me out the door and locked it behind me."

"What a bastard."

Sherlock shrugs, "Just doing his job – badly, which made it easier for me. It's not his fault that my phone battery is flat. Otherwise I would have called for a cab to take me back to my rooms. Which is what I would like you to do now, so I can get out of here. I apologise for the intrusion but after pub closing hours this is the only address this side of the Cam where I thought I could talk my way into using a phone."

Finally, his speech patterns are returning to some semblance of normality instead of sounding like a video being played on fast forward. He also realises, however, that the hot drink is reminding him that he needs to visit a loo in the near future. It's such a palaver having a pee, balanced on two crutches and one leg that he's been avoiding drinking water as much as possible. The tea seems to have opened the flood gates. Perhaps, once Victor gets the hint and goes to make the phone call for a taxi, he'll be able to answer this call of nature. He hopes that there is a ground-floor loo; the idea of climbing stairs right now is about as remote a possibility as making an assault up the north face of the Eiger. He squirms a little on the bar-stool, hoping that his host doesn't notice.

"So… when was the last time you went to your rooms in Burrell's Fields?" Victor asks.

Sherlock is thrown by the _non sequitur_. "Why? What does that matter? How does it make a difference to you using the phone?"

"Just answer the question."

"What day is it today?"

For some reason that question provokes a smile on the blond's face. "Wednesday… Well, at least for the next quarter of an hour; then it's Thursday."

"Umm… I think it was Saturday; I went back to collect some stuff I needed. It's too much of a pain to keep going back and forth. The hassle of getting up the stairs to my room is just not worth it. Cabs are..." an involuntary shudder seizes Sherlock's frame again; the shivering is getting worse. "…A nuisance, too. Never show up when you need them to be punctual." He has to cross his legs on the bar stool now, and does so with feigned nonchalance.

"What about classes?"

This interrogation is getting on his nerves, as well as straining an already complaining bladder. "What about them? I don't attend lectures; they're boring, a complete waste of time. I can study all the material in much less time than it takes for some so-called expert to explain it to the idiots attending those lectures. My supervisor knows I'll pass the exam, so he doesn't push me into pointless attendance for the practical lab experiments. This project is all that matters."

"He said it was good. I told you that."

Sherlock nods, although he's not sure why it should matter to a Land Economy student what the Chemistry Professor thinks.

He is about to ask where the loo in the flat is when Victor interrupts him: "But, I doubt he wanted you to put yourself back into hospital over it."

"Why would I do that?" Sherlock is now utterly confused.

"When was the last time you saw the doctor?"

"When I was discharged. What does that have to do with you letting me use your phone to call a taxi?"

"Where's your medication? They must have prescribed something when you were discharged."

Sherlock has to think. He runs a mental checklist on the contents of the backpack he'd left at the lab. "Ummm… must be back at my rooms."

Victor laughs incredulously. "A fat lot of good it's doing you there. So, that's at least five days you've missed antibiotics. And what about pain meds?"

Sherlock is getting annoyed. "You're reading land economy, not medicine. What's it to you, anyway?"

"I'm responsible for the injury that put you into this mess, and I…"

Sherlock interrupts: "Then do as I ask and call the taxi." He makes it as peremptory a demand as he can. "And tell me where there is a loo."

Victor picks up the pile of soft clothes that Sherlock notices for the first time. "The joggers will be a bit long on you, so just roll them up. I've found a sweatshirt that shrank when Chloe washed it, so it should fit." He points over to the side of the room. "You'll want to change in the downstairs toilet — used to be in the garden before they extended the kitchen with the conservatory."

Relieved, Sherlock grabs his crutches and half falls off the bar stool onto his one goodish leg which pulls at the stitches on the ankle and makes him draw a hasty breath. He tucks the dry clothes under his arm and then hobbles over to the door at the end of the line of kitchen cupboards. Wrenching the door open, Sherlock propels himself into the room and staggers towards the toilet. Closing the door and then gropes in the dark for the light switch, he fumbles at his jeans, trying to get the zipper down whilst still keeping the cuffs of the crutches around his forearms. The dry clothes have ended up on the floor somewhere, but all he can think about is how desperate for a pee he is.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: Idiocy**

* * *

"Number Six, Sax…" Victor is half way through the address in his call to Chloe's favourite taxi company when there is a crash and the sound of breaking glass in the downstairs loo. He slams the phone down and heads for the kitchen. He's been an idiot for thinking that anyone would be able to change out of wet clothes in such a small space, let alone someone who was precariously balancing on one leg and two crutches.

The crash is loud enough to bring Chloe out of the sitting room; she gets into the kitchen just as Victor is lifting Sherlock up off the floor and carrying him out to avoid the smashed glass fragments of the perfume bottle that has been knocked off the shelf when he fell over.

"What the hell? That's my Gucci _Envy_ you've broken. It's so _expensive_!"

"Put me down!" A half-undressed Sherlock is struggling to get out of Victor's arms, but it is a losing battle. As a second row rugby forward he has strength on his side.

"Help me out here, Chloe — open the door to the box room, please?"

A frown on her face, she does as he asks. "Just mind my clothes, will you?"

Although technically a two bed flat, this tiny box room has just enough space for a single bed and one of Chloe's dress rails. She has too many dresses to fit in the upstairs wardrobe, so this is where she keeps her fanciest clothes. She keeps talking about needing a shoe room in wherever they are going to live after university.

Sherlock sags against the wall when Victor deposits him on the bed. Fumbling at his wet trousers, he begins hastily trying to pull them back up over his pale, goose-bumped thighs with a slight tinge of pink on his cheeks, as if embarrassed to be seen half-dressed by a girl.

"Give us some privacy, Clo." Victor shuts the door on her and then pulls off the offending item, trying to avoid pulling too hard when the wet trouser leg gets caught around the cast. The bottom of the plaster is dirty grey, whereas the top, just below his knee, still looks pristine. Tugging the left trouser leg down, Victor spots the dressing around Sherlock's ankle; it looks dirty, too, and a yellow stain has seeped through the gauze.

He has to ask, "When did you last change this bandage?"

Sherlock's eyes are closed. Then, he sneezes violently, before gasping out. "Don't know; don't care."

"Well, you should have; that looks awful. Let me help you get dressed first, and then I will put a new one on."

"Nooo…. Not _those_ clothes, not now that they've been drenched in that stuff. The stench is just every conceivable horror to my nose. The dresses in here smell awful enough."

Victor smirks, "Maybe to you; to her, it's paradise."

The groan that meets this is almost theatrical in its volume. "I need a taxi out of this hellhole; did you manage to get me one?"

Victor makes a decision. "No. And I don't intend to, either. If the thermometer I am going to give you confirms what I just felt carrying you in here, then you've got a fever. You are in no fit state to get up college stairs to your rooms, or to get into and out of your own wet clothes. As you pointed out, this is closer to the Chemistry labs, so if you are really serious about getting back to work there tomorrow, just shorten the travel time by staying here overnight. I'll put your wet things in the tumble dryer so you can put them back on tomorrow morning. I'll get you some different clothes now for sleeping in, and turn on the radiator in here. You need to stay warm. Another cup of tea, and maybe something to eat to go with some paracetamol? Tomorrow I don't have lectures until four and practice is at lunchtime, so I will cycle to Burrell's Fields first thing and get your meds. You really do need to be taking your recovery a bit more seriously."

That list of orders makes one of those startlingly strange blue eyes open a crack to survey him suspiciously. "Who appointed you dictator?"

Victor simply raises his eyebrows. "You want the alternative? Fine. Maybe I'll call that number on the business card that the bloke who should be watching you more carefully and get him to take you into hospital. By the way, that cast should have come off by now, if I recall what the nurse said. So, that's on the agenda, too."

He is slightly surprised at himself for how directive a tone he has suddenly adopted, but Victor rationalises it by thinking that the alternative to him doing this will be even worse for Sherlock. There is just no way he can allow the young man to neglect his own health. It was bad enough that he'd been responsible for the original injury; he cannot, _would not_ , add insult to the injury by allowing him to make it worse.

"Dryden probably thinks I'm still at the lab, because that's where my phone battery died. I left it in my book-bag which is still there. That's how he was able to follow me without me knowing about it – used a tracer."

Victor can't help but laugh. "Sounds like something out of a James Bond movie."

"Yes, well, my brother likes to abuse technology for personal reasons, rather than sticking to his job."

"Which is?" Victor is curious. The older Holmes brother had been quite an intimidating character on first meeting.

" _Obvious_." Sherlock is dismissive, leaving Victor to accept that it probably is involved with British intelligence.

"How did you get him to keep Dryden at a distance, once you'd blown his cover?" Victor cannot help but put a smile around that last phrase; it sounds so ridiculous in the context of a university student.

"I've done a deal with him. He can track my phone, but if he gets any closer than 100 meters, I will start a stalking complaint with the local police. It's a stand-off. He must be bored witless watching the Chemistry lab. But, this is probably a cushy job compared to the sort of stake-outs he usually gets stuck with so he's not keen to rock the boat."

"How did you get past him tonight?"

Sherlock laughs. "Would you have been out on a motorbike in this weather? He thinks I'm kipping at the lab; my phone's still there, so he's keeping dry."

The paracetamol and the warm bed must be having their effect, because Victor watches Sherlock's eyelids getting heavier and heavier. He briefly disappears to return with a glass jar with a metal lid. "Don't tell Chloe; she'll have a fit if she finds out. But don't you dare get out of bed to go have a pee. Do it in here, then top on, under the bed. I'll sort it tomorrow."

Stopping at the door, he asks. Are you sure you're going to be alright?"

Victor hears a muffled, "I'm _fine._ Go away."

"I'm going to leave the door ajar. Don't even think about getting out of bed. Shout if you need anything." He turns off the light in the single bedroom, and steps into the hall. As he looks back into the dark room, the light from the ceiling fixture on the stairs catches a few of the sequins on one of Chloe's dresses.

Victor has taken two steps towards the stairs when he hears an almighty sneeze. Stifling a laugh, he knows that this is probably because Sherlock's nose is objecting to the perfume that Chloe tends to douse herself in when she's going out on the town. Their reluctant houseguest has complained of the place reeking of it the minute he'd set foot in the room. And now he probably does, too. Victor is used to it, but Sherlock is clearly not.

At least the sneezing seems to be the worst thing ailing Sherlock right now.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

In the morning, Sherlock wakes up to the sound of arguing; it seems that Chloe isn't best amused that her box room is still being colonised by an impromptu overnight guest.

He hears the front door slam – someone must have stormed out; odds are it's the fiancée, given the racket of high heeled shoes that went past his door on the way out.

Sherlock drags himself to a sitting position under the covers just as Victor arrives with a cup of tea and toast on a tray. "You look terrible. Stay here while I go get your meds and some fresh clothes. Anything else you need from your room?"

Sherlock grimaces as he slides his legs out from under the duvet. "Hand me the crutches; if my clothes are dry I will leave you two in peace. I have to get back to my experiment. "

"Nope. Chloe's gone, and she won't be back until late tonight; she's got some do on at Girton. You need to stay put. You look hot and sweaty; most likely still got a fever."

"None of your business."

"Look; you're in no fit state to go anywhere. At least, let me get your antibiotics. Paracetamol will hold you until I get back. If the fever's gone down, then you can hobble over to the lab this afternoon." He holds out the thermometer.

Sherlock ignores it and him.

Victor rescues the piss jar from under the bed, and then he picks up the crutches and walks out of the room with them.

"Hey! I _need_ those!"

Victor's words float down the hall from the kitchen, "Only if you're planning on going somewhere that you shouldn't. And, I'm holding your clothes hostage, too."

"Why are you doing this?" Sherlock is outraged.

"Because someone needs to, if you aren't going to be sensible otherwise. It's either stay put while I get your medicine, or I'm going to call that private eye guy and tell him what's going on."

"That's blackmail. You're as bad as my brother."

Victor re-appears at the door. "Maybe I'm beginning to see his point. If you don't rest up this morning and try to get rid of this fever, then you're more of an idiot than I thought."

Sherlock's eyes blaze with anger. He is hot and bothered, and he knows he does have a fever, but he's also well and truly pissed off at being kept here.

"Come on. Don't be so stubborn. Just let it go for a while; take a sick day."

"The experiments won't wait; I'm late enough as it is on them. And that is _your_ fault."

"You don't have to remind me. I know. Listen, here's the deal. You stay here this morning, take the medicine and I'll help you out this afternoon. "

"You've got rugby practice."

Victor sighs. "That's lunch time, and it's just a playbook session. After that."

"You won't be able to help me. The work needs a chemist, not a land economist."

"Give me some credit, Sherlock. If you show me what to do, I can do it." He snorts. "I'll be Igor."

"Who's he?"

"You know, Doctor Frankenstein's lab assistant?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You don't watch a lot of films, do you?"

"No. Waste of time."

"Oh. Well, there was the nineteenth century novel it's based on, but I'm guessing you're a non-fiction kind of guy. Forget the references to modern culture then, and just accept my offer of help."

Sherlock thinks about it. Finally, he relents with an irritated nod.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

When Victor gets back from Burrell's Fields with Sherlock's medicine, the flat is empty.

After he finishes swearing like the rugby player he is, Victor is so pissed off that he decides to do something about it. His anger is enough to fuel a quick march of the two hundred meters to the Chemistry building and into the main reception area.

"Do you know where I can find Professor Stephen Blay's labs?"

The receptionist looks up; she's in her late thirties, but trying to re-live her university days, if her too youthful clothing and ridiculous eye make-up is anything to go by.

"He doesn't have classes on Wednesdays; you'll find him at Trinity."

"I'm not after him, just one of his students."

She looks over his shoulder at the swarms of students moving through the hall and up the stairs. "Take your pick. He lectures to 300 at a time."

Victor is too annoyed to be polite. "This one's different. His name is Sherlock Holmes, and Professor Blay is his director of studies."

"Oh, _him_. The _freak_."

Victor's shock at the casual use of that word must have shown on his face.

"He's been banished to SMY404; fourth floor, just follow the signs to the Organic Biochem Postgraduate Department."

"Are you sure? He's a second year undergrad."

"Yeah, well, it's kind of hard to forget a guy whose lab bench exploded a month ago." She's smiling at the memory. "That's why he was banished. It was _really_ exciting."

Victor decides he doesn't really have time to hear the story. "Thanks."

The higher up the building he goes, the quieter things get, since the main lecture theatres and classrooms are on the lower floors. The undergrad labs are busy; they're on the third floor, but the crowd thins out a lot as he bounds up the last flight of stairs, raising a few eyebrows from the older students coming down.

The rooms are all numbered with an SMY prefix, but there don't seem to be any that are higher than double digits.

A door opens and a man in his mid-thirties comes down the corridor, his nose buried in a sheaf of print-outs. He's wearing a white coat, has thick glasses and looks like a walking stereotype of a scientist.

"SMY404? Can you point me in the right direction?"

The makes the man look up at Victor, and then his brow furrows. "I know you from somewhere? But, you're not a student."

Taken aback, Victor snaps, "Yes, I am." He's fishing for his student ID when the guy says "You're the Rugby player, Trevor whatever his name, the captain."

"Victor Trevor." People always seem to get his name back to front.

"Not chemistry." It's said rather dismissively. "I'd remember if a chemistry student ever made it onto the rugby team."

Ignoring that, Victor tries again. "Room 404? Does it even exist?"

"Yes, it does, it's just hard to find. That's why it's called 404."

Victor wonders what the joke is. Are all chemistry students just wired differently?

Seeing his confusion, the grad student offers, "You know, Four oh Four? The HTTP error message for not found? Although I guess for you, the better analogy is the Sin Bin. It's where the guys with the really weird experiments are sent – or those who are just about to screw up big time and lose their grants. Why do you want to know?"

"I'm looking for Sherlock Holmes."

He snorts. "Yeah, that's where he's been sent after he wrecked one of the bigger rooms; uncontrolled chain reaction that caused an explosion. No one wants to work anywhere near him." He hooks a thumb over his shoulder. "Keep going until it looks like the corridor ends in a set of cupboard doors. Turn left, up a couple of stairs and there's another door. That's 404."

When Victor finds the room, four sets of eyes look up from equipment — but none of them is the extraordinary blue-green colour that he is seeking.

"Um… Sherlock Holmes is supposed to be in here?"

"He's stepped out; probably gone for a smoke. Given what happened the last time…" This is offered by a young female student in a white coat who is using a pipette to fill a tray of sample tubes. He looks back down at what she is doing, but the other three older students in the room are still fixated at the sight of Victor.

One of them is half hidden behind an impressive array of tubes, flasks, burners and other equipment whose purpose Victor can only guess at. He steps away from the kit to get a better look at Victor as he explains, "Holmes was too lazy to go outside, so lit a cigarette in the lab. What happens when a guy gets so wrapped up in his work and so cocky that he thinks he can ignore basic combustion?" He laughs and throws his hands up; "Boom!"

The others in the room join in the laughter.

"Was anyone hurt?"

"He was the only one in the lab, thank God, so no one _human_ got hurt. Singed the freak's eyebrows I think. The explosion took out his experiment and also those of three other students. That's why he's in here."

The younger student who had spoken first now pipes up, "So _that's_ why you've stuck me back here! I'm the nearest one to him…"She looks apprehensively over her shoulder at the bench farthest from the door.

The older student on the next table over snorts. "You're my undergraduate lab assistant, a lower life form; you're expendable by definition."

The other grads are still laughing when Victor decides to interrupt. "Show me where he works, and I will wait for him."

"What do you want with him? Access to the labs is only for authorised persons. Visitors are not allowed; too distracting – we've got _real_ work to do." This comes from a thin, angular graduate student whose chin is adorned with a rather straggly beard. He is doing nothing to hide the suspicion in his question.

Victor huffs in annoyance. "Just point me in the direction of his space, and I'll sit quietly until he gets back. You won't know I'm here." He slips off his backpack. "I'm a friend and I have something for him."

"A _friend_? That a joke?"

Before Victor can answer, the weedy one starts laughing. "Holmes doesn't have friends; just people he's pissed off to a greater or lesser degree. Maybe he thinks a friend is someone who doesn't know him well enough yet to want to kill him." He steps away from his bench and circumnavigates around Victor, scrutinising him from all sides. "No, you're a real fish out of water. Not a scientist at all. My guess is that this is the proof that the JCR at Trinity's been looking for — you've got be his _boyfriend._ I cannot wait to tell Seb Wilkes so I can collect my winnings. Dunno how the freak would ever score a jock, though."

 _What?_ Victor realises that he's blushing furiously but before he can put the guy right, there is a baritone voice from the door behind him.

"Leave off, Phelps, or I'll tell Trevor's fiancée. She's tough enough to eat men like you for breakfast. While you're at it, you can tell Wilkes to go to hell; he's never going to get proof of anything, so you will all lose your money."

Sherlock uses his crutches surprisingly quickly to go around Victor and heads to the back of the room, ignoring everyone. After a moment's hesitation, Victor follows, as the other students get back to work.

"What are you doing here?" It's quietly said, barely loud enough to be heard over the bubbling of what Victor realises is the most elaborate array of glassware he's ever seen. Unlike the other benches, this one is being used just by Sherlock, and judging from the chaos of papers, books and experimental paraphernalia that is jumbled up everywhere, it's understandable that no one else would dare get near the spot.

Victor looks away, back at Sherlock, who won't meet his gaze. He has shoved the crutches into the corner and has parked himself on a rolling stool which he's propelling along the bench using his good leg. Soon, his attention is focused intently on the glassware, twiddling a nob or two, then making a note on a pad. Next, he types something into a spreadsheet on his laptop.

Victor looks closely, sees a thin line of sweat on the forehead below that ridiculously lush head of wavy hair, and realises that the flushed face is an indication that the fever's still there.

Despite matching the low decibel level, Victor manages to snap, "I might ask the same of you. You agreed to stay at the flat." He undoes the flap on his backpack and pulls out the antibiotics, paracetamol and a bottle of water. "Take these _now._ Because of your disappearing act and me having to waste time chasing you down, I'm going to be pushed to make the lunchtime practice."

"I didn't ask you to do any of that."

" _NOW!_ " Victor raises his voice just enough that the geeky student with the wispy beard looks over, curious.

Sherlock sighs. "Just leave the medicine and go." His face reddens a bit and Victor decides that is not the fever; rather, he is obviously embarrassed by the attention.

"Not until I see you take them."

"Why do you care? I don't understand." This is hissed at Victor with considerable annoyance.

"Because you're an idiot," Victor says. He's not angry anymore, mostly just amused at how Sherlock has evolved stubbornness into an art form.

Victor snaps open the plastic cap of the water bottle and slides it, the blister pack of paracetamol and the pill bottle along the counter top. "The prescription says two of these tablets every six hours. I'll be back after practice and then you can show me what needs to be done here. I have a class at four, but should be back here again by five fifteen. And, I'm going to watch you take the next dose, and the dose after that, because you are coming back to the flat with me to get something to eat, too."

"You don't have to do this. I am perfectly capable of managing on my own."

"As a scientist, you know that I shouldn't believe a word of that until I see some proof. You may be a genius but the evidence so far says you're a bit of an idiot at sorting yourself out." Victor doesn't wait for an answer as he shoulders his backpack and leaves the room.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8** **: Confrontation**

* * *

" _NOW!"_

Hands on hips, she stands in the bedroom doorway blocking Victor's exit. All five foot two of her is bristling with anger, enough to match the staunchest of front row forwards that he routinely faces on the rugby pitch.

"Chlo, I've got too much to do and I'm on a tight schedule; this has to wait until tonight."

"You've been saying that for days. If you won't settle this now, then I'm not going to be here tonight. You've put it off long enough: tell him to piss off, because I've had enough! This flat is not big enough for the three of us, and he's _so_ outstayed his welcome. Even for a friend, nine days is, like, a week too long. And he's not a friend; he's a cretin."

"Keep your voice down. You're embarrassing us both." He finishes tucking in his shirt and pulls the sweatshirt over his head.

"NO, I WON'T, and I don't care if he overhears us! About effing time he does. He's out of here tonight, or else. Ever since he got here, you've been running around like some bloody butler, looking after him, taking him to appointments, acting as his skivvy night and day in that lab. Christ, Vic, the guy's family isn't poor; he could afford a live-in carer."

Victor pulls the sleeves of the sweatshirt down his arms properly, and asks quietly: "What do you know about his family? Have you been snooping around?"

"I checked him out with Alice; she's going out with a Trinity boy from his year. Turns out, he's the second son of some lord muckety muck from West Sussex; big country pile, the lot. They obviously don't give a damn about him, given he's camped out here. Why are you so intent on looking after someone who is such a loser? Let his family sort him out."

The last thing that Victor wants to do is tell Chloe that he's already met Sherlock's brother, and that it was hardly a pleasant experience. "His family didn't put him in this situation; it was your bloody dog that did. If he doesn't finish this chemistry project of his, then it's going to screw up his second year. You know why he's here; it's only 200 meters to the lab, so he can have some hope in hell of catching up, especially if I help out."

She rolls her eyes. "Let him use taxis, for God's sake. I'm fed up with you spending all the time you aren't in class or at practice with that weirdo. It's been ages since we've had a night out, together, _without him_. You're out all hours; it's not fair! I'm going downstairs now into the kitchen and you're going to tell him that he's got to leave by tonight. It's him or me, Vic. _Tonight_."

She stomps down the stairs and slams the front door.

Victor fixes himself breakfast; his class isn't until nine. Despite her ultimatum, he knows her well enough. With a day to cool down, she will be more willing to talk about it sensibly when she does get home. If he times it right, he will have an hour between the end of practice and having to show up to the lab. Chloe can be volatile, but she's not stupid. She wants the marriage enough to be willing to put up with a bit of short-term inconvenience. As he cracks four eggs into the frying pan, he wonders whether it's time he put a few markers down that she can't take him for granted.

When Sherlock appears, the boy won't meet his eye. He thumps his crutches across to the loo off the kitchen, emerging some fifteen minutes later, having shaved and washed. Without a word, he returns to the box room to dress. Victor had brought him several changes of clothes from him Burrell's Fields room after the third day of the flat-sharing arrangement.

"Breakfast is ready," Victor shouts and then sits down at the table to tuck into his bacon, fried eggs, grilled tomatoes and a big glass of milk. A rugby forward knows that he has to consume enough calories to make up for what he burns on the field. There is a big match on Saturday and he is dreading it a bit. The team has had a good win-loss record so far this season, but the Crawshay's Welsh Fifteen are going to take some beating. The most famous amateur team in the country had just thrashed Oxford University last weekend; there would be inevitable comparisons between Cambridge and Oxford's performances against the Welsh side. It's all part of the hype building up to the Varsity Match in December.

Sherlock slips into the chair opposite and shoves his crutches aside. He looks at the plate in front of him warily. "I'm not hungry."

Around a mouthful of toast, Victor mumbles: "Tough. Nutrition is needed to heal, so just eat." He spears a sausage on his own plate and bites off a chunk. "Balanced diet— it's been beaten into me ever since school. You need it just as much as me or even more, while your leg heals."

"I'm not playing rugby."

""No, you're healing damaged muscles, nerves and tendons—that's worse, so shut up and eat."

Sherlock pushes a few things around on the plate, before putting his fork down. Still avoiding Victor's gaze, he mutters, "She's right, you know. I'll pack up my things. If you can help me get them to the lab before you go to class, then I'll get a taxi back to Burrell's Fields."

"No. She doesn't get to order me around. You'll stay."

Before he actually says that, he had not realised that he'd already made up his mind.

"She's your fiancé; she doesn't want me here."

"I do. And that's enough."

"Why?"

"Why, what?"

"Why do you want me to stay? Why won't you do what she wants?"

Victor tackles the second question first. "Because I'm kind of tired of her always telling me what to do. She needs to learn how to accommodate other people's needs, mine included." He decides that he won't answer the first question, because he is not entirely sure why. Or at least, he's not ready to answer that question yet. Is it about Sherlock? Or just about Chloe? He knows for sure that he's fed up with her telling him what to do. For now, that's enough.

"I don't want to be the cause of strife."

"You aren't. Her selfishness is."

"But, you're going to _marry her._ "

"That could change if she doesn't realise that I have a say in this. We're not married yet, and this is my flat. She's supposed to be saving money for the wedding by being here instead of paying for college rooms or in digs, but she spends it all on clothes, rather than actually saving. So, if she doesn't like the fact that I said you could stay until you get back on your feet, then she can go kip on one of her girlfriend's sofas for a while. Might help her keep things in proportion."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Now eat up; I've got to get to class. I won't be at the lab until after practice, but you can set up the second array to go from about four thirty."

oOoOoOoOo

For the rest of the day, Victor worries. Despite his bravado over breakfast, he has never directly challenged Chloe. Despite her histrionics, Victor knows that she has a point. He's spent more of the past nine days in Sherlock's company than hers. But, he's not ready to call a halt to that, not yet, and certainly not just because she is jealous of him spending time with someone else.

At the start it had been necessary, and not just because of the chemistry project. He's been the one to make sure that Sherlock had made it to the hospital to get the plaster cast off, and the stitches in his other ankle taken out. Because he hasn't taken "no" for an answer, the boy has slept, taken his medicine, eaten properly and managed to keep up with the experiments late into the night thanks to having an assistant.

Along the way, something had changed. He's not doing this out of a sense of duty any more. He realises that he _likes_ Sherlock, and enjoys his company. The boy is different from everyone he has ever met.

The biggest challenge had been to convince Professor Blay to give Sherlock and him special permission to use the facility up until midnight. Once again, Victor had braved the man's offices at Trinity College, and made his point as clearly as possible.

"You're the one who said he's a genius, but I'm the one who's put his project in jeopardy because of the accident with my dog. If you'll let him work after hours, then he'll finish on time."

The professor had pushed his reading glasses down his nose and eyed him carefully. "He doesn't know you're here, does he?"

"No, sir. He's already tried to do it his way, which is hiding in the lab. He already got caught once by the security guard."

"I know; it was reported to me. I decided to turn a blind eye to the trespass, so long as it stopped."

"He's not going to stop, sir. That's why I am here—to ask permission, because he won't. With respect, I don't think he gives a damn about rules."

"I'm well aware of Holmes' peculiarities. What's _your_ role in this?"

"I'm just trying to do what I can to make sure he recovers from the injury and that it doesn't damage his academic prospects."

"You're not responsible, Mister Trevor. Accidents happen."

"I know that, sir. I just think I can make a difference here. He deserves that chance."

The raised eyebrow had been enough to signal the professor's scepticism. "That's very decent of you, but I'm sure you have work of your own to do."

"Land economics, sir."

"Oh." There is a universal understanding amongst academics that this is not the most taxing of degrees, and the coursework is notorious for allowing Cambridge's sportsmen all the time they needed to practice. "Maybe you have the time, but what's to stop him from just taking advantage of the access to work himself to the point of exhaustion? That could lead to another accident. You don't know him. I still think he should have taken a term off and agreed to go home. Would have been the more sensible solution all around."

"Um, I don't think 'sensible' is a word he understands. I'm asking permission for access for me, too, so I can make sure that he doesn't over-do it. It's not all night; just up to midnight. That way, he will get some rest."

That had got him a wry smile. "What does Holmes think of that? He's never taken to listening to anyone before now. What makes you think he will care this time?"

Victor had crossed his arms. "He's not had to deal with a second row forward before. I'm pretty determined, and I have a thick skin."

That made the professor laugh. "You'll need it. It's on your head, Trevor. Good luck. You both have my permission and I'll tell the lab security to let you in – but only until midnight." He made a shooing gesture. "Now let me get back to work."

If only Chloe had been as amenable to the arrangement.

She'd started complaining from the first day. Sherlock was "in the way". It was "inconvenient" to have someone else, anyone else, in the flat because she couldn't wander around half-dressed as she usually did. When they were on their own, having the opportunity to enjoy the eye appeal of her body was one of his pleasures, he had to admit. Not that Sherlock seemed to notice. When he wasn't at the lab, most of the time he stayed in the little box room, earbuds in, listening to music. It was only on his forays to the loo off the kitchen that he encountered her glare of disapproval.

"He's just weird," Chloe had complained. "He asked me to turn my music down, as if it was _his_ place and not mine."

That is another issue. When she is at home, Chloe always likes to listen to dance music like Ricky Martin's _Living La Vida Loca_ at full volume; loud enough that their neighbours had complained. When Victor had found Sherlock with his pillow over his head, despite the earplugs, he'd pried it out of his hands and apologised, with a wry smile. "Well, it's better than her singing along to Mariah Carey or Jennifer Lopez."

"Who are they? The banshees?"

That had thrown him a bit. "No, not Siouxsie and the Banshees; they're like… too old. She prefers the latest club dance pop idols."

"Who is Susie? I was referring to the Celtic creatures who herald someone's death by their wails and shrieks. Your fiancé could well be one of them."

He'd tried to stifle a giggle at that. Chloe did not have a great voice, it had to be said. He'd sort of gotten used to her style of flirting, when she'd put on Christina Aguilera's _What a Girl Wants_ and sang along, off-key, as she led him up to the bedroom. He didn't mind, given what followed. Sex with Chloe had always been the basis of their attraction. That and the look on other boys' faces when she went places with him. "Eye candy" is what his first year roommate had named her.

That is related to yet another complaint Chloe has made about Sherlock's presence in the flat: "He's putting me and you off sex." She didn't like being told to keep her voice down when having a good time in bed. Victor found it rather embarrassing that she is as vocal as Meg Ryan in that film, screaming her "Yes, yes, YES!" At least Chloe's orgasms aren't faked, but he did find it hard to imagine what the hell Sherlock would be making of it all. He'd gotten the sense that the boy had little contact with the opposite sex. The few times he even deigns to look in Chloe's direction, it is in wary bafflement.

To make sure that Sherlock does not overdo things, he's made him eat a meal at the flat before accompanying him to the lab where they work until midnight. Victor had a chemistry O level as his required science at Gresham's, but most of what was going on was way over his head. Still, he is able to follow orders so long as they were well explained. He did make Sherlock slow down and accept that he didn't know all the jargon, but once shown, Victor has proved to be a dab hand at the mechanics and the readings that were needed. Still, Sherlock wouldn't allow him to do anything without supervision, so the idea of him being able to keep things ticking over while Sherlock took a break has never materialised. Shaking his head, Sherlock had said "Can't do it. I have to comply with the rules that say my work is my own."

Victor had rolled his eyes. "Tell that to the other four in here; they've got a regular rota of undergrad students in here doing their donkey work."

"Lazy idiots. Anyway, I don't have the patience to deal with other people."

"You are letting me help."

"I don't have a choice, do I? Thanks to this stupid Achilles tendon, I have to, or I will never finish on time."

Victor knew that both his studies and rugby would suffer as much as Chloe's temper would if he kept disappearing until after midnight. On the third night, he'd suggested commandeering the rest of the bench — unoccupied, apart from a jumble of Sherlock's papers and books, because none of the other grad students in the room wanted to be anywhere near Sherlock.

"If you set up another apparatus to mirror this one, then we can run two experiments simultaneously and you'll get the same amount of data as you would as running them sequentially. That way you'll not only catch up, but you can actually come back to the flat at ten and get some sleep."

Speechless, Sherlock had stared at him for almost a minute before slowly nodding. "That is… possible. In fact, preferable. Managing the adjustments during the run is something that doesn't take any brain power, just attention to detail. I can do the important calculations for both, input the data into my laptop and finish in half the time. With me here to supervise you, I can trust that you won't make any mistakes."

"Gee, thanks for that vote of confidence."

He'd not gotten a response to that sarcasm, which he soon realised was rather typical for Sherlock. _Not a great conversationalist._ At first, he'd tried to fill some of the time watching the equipment with a bit of small talk, but gave up when Sherlock had snapped, "Talking is one way to distract both of us from doing what is needed, so don't."

Oddly, after the first night in the lab, Victor began to realise that he appreciated the quiet. Chloe was a chatterbox at home, and if she wasn't talking at him, the music or the television was always on. At the lab, he and Sherlock slipped into a silent routine of work that demanded his attention. It was a bit of stop and go; the experiments had to take place on a strict timetable, with solutions added and then heated; Sherlock used a stop watch and precise temperature control readouts. Between the runs, he had a strict routine of cleaning the glasswork that took ten minutes. Sherlock would set a pinger and let the two systems return to sterile conditions.

Between the runs on the fourth night, Victor's curiosity had made him push Sherlock into a little bit more explanation of what the experiments were supposed to be measuring. "Why are we doing this? What's it all about?"

"What do you know about proteins?"

Victor smiled. "That my coach says I need a LOT of it in my diet to help build muscle."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "I mean about how the biochemistry of proteins works— DNA, RNA, genes and all that."

"Let's assume I know nothing." It was safer to admit ignorance.

"You do know that the human genome is just about mapped?"

Victor shrugged. "I don't read science journals."

This provoked a sigh. "Well it is, and it will be profoundly important for medicine, but it'll only be the starting point for the area I am most interested in."

"Which is?"

"Forensic biochemistry, specifically something called proteomics, which leads to the detection of certain types of proteins. Forensics involves blood samples, and once you know the human genome then lots of other things can be assessed. Genes on their own are… well, _boring._ It's the proteins that they give rise to that are the interesting bit. And when proteins are identified that involve toxicology, it creates evidence that no one knew even existed. To make sense of it all, new lab techniques of analysis are going to be needed that look into the biology at a molecular level, and involve data sets that can only be organised with advanced mathematics and modelling. It's going to be _massive."_

"Forensics… Isn't that to do with crimes? Why is that worthy of study? Wouldn't… I don't know, something more medical be better, more important?" When there was no answer, Victor prompted, "You know, for the betterment of mankind and all that?"

"I don't care about that. There are tens of thousands of biochemists at work in medical fields, nearly all of whom are going to end up working for pharmaceutical companies. That's _boring._ I'm more interested in the crimes that are committed and the criminals who get away with them because no one can be bothered to apply proper biochemistry to forensics."

"Yeah, but… _poisons?_ That's what toxicology is about, isn't it? Cyanide and arsenic and stuff like that?"

"Those are inorganic compounds – too easy. Tests that can show those have been around for decades, even a century. Any idiot can find the elemental metals. But, biochemical agents can kill without anyone being able to prove it, because they are too fast-acting, don't stay in the body long enough in their lethal form before breaking down, and become impossible to trace."

Victor's dismay must have shown on his face. "Biochemical _weapons_?"

Sherlock waved his hand in dismissal. "No, I'm not talking about things like sarin nerve gas* More a question of unexplained deaths. When the symptoms say there's been a poisoning, but no one can prove it."

"Why does that matter to you?"

Sherlock had looked down at the counter-top, as if considering how to answer that. When he had finally started speaking, it had been quietly said but with real vehemence. "Because twice I have had… experience of someone trying to get away with murder that could not be proven."

" _What?"_ Victor had been so shocked that he didn't know what else to say. "When?"

"The first time when I was ten; a boy drowned in a pool, only I don't think he drowned. But, the police wouldn't look any deeper than the obvious. No one believed me when I said it was murder. They just ignored me when I said maybe he was poisoned."

Victor looked at the two sets of glass works in front of them. "So, what does all this have to do with _that_? Should I be wearing some more protection if you're working with poisons?" He'd insisted on wearing goggles, because Bunsen burners and glass always made him a bit nervous. The idea that Sherlock might be experimenting with toxic substances had not occurred to him before now.

"Relax. There's nothing lethal here, more's the pity. Not allowed to—stupid rules say I shouldn't do that in a shared lab. It's part of the reason why there is such a need for more and better research in this field. Over the next decade, forensic identification of proteins produced by the body in reaction to the presence of a toxin will open up new forms of evidence-gathering. It will revolutionise crime detection; I'm developing a new way to identify proteins quickly, an experimental protocol if you will."

"Is this what was in that report I picked up from Professor Blay and brought to you in the hospital?"

"That was the literature review, the design of the experiment and the logistics. He had to approve it, and that was the start of the delay. My first version focused on whole human blood, but he wouldn't let me do it; said I had to 'walk before I could run' or some other pointless tripe. While I wait for the human genome to be fully mapped, over twelve weeks, I'm applying a proteomic approach to investigate the heat shock response in _Escherichia coli_. That's a bacterium."

"I've heard of it – E. coli; it's what gives you food poisoning." He had looked aghast at the solution bubbling in the Erlenmeyer flask in front of him.

Sherlock sniffed. "Only some strains. Most are harmless and live in the gut of warm-blooded animals. What matters is that the E. coli genome was mapped ages ago; it was one of the first. By bringing together biochemical and genetics techniques I'm subjecting the bacteria to a heat shock and observing what happens as the proteins denature."

"Heat shock? What's that?"

"I'm using a triad approach: first off, I see what happens to a solution of E. coli during a heat jump from 30 degrees to 46 degrees centigrade over 3 minutes; then I do another run comparing those results to a different heat shock, raising the same temperature increase over ninety seconds. That should happen after Christmas. Finally, probably around Easter I'll do a third run to test the proteome expression profile associated with a decrease in temperature— that's the cold shock response. It's all to see if the resulting protein formations differ. That's going to take some serious data crunching once I have the MALDI-TOF MS results."

Victor had to smile. "That's amazing."

Sherlock had been wary. "Why? Do you actually understand what I am saying?"

"No. It's amazing that you can get all that out in one breath."

Sherlock had looked a little disappointed.

Victor had given an embarrassed laugh. "Don't mind me; I'm just an idiot. You said so yourself. What's maldy toff… or whatever you said?"

"Matrix assisted laser desorption ionisation-time of flight mass spectrometry."

"Sounds like something out of a sci-fi film. But clearly you do know what it is, and if Cambridge's professor of organic chemistry says you're a genius, who am I to disagree?"

"Did he? Really?" Sherlock had seemed surprised by that.

"Yeah."

"He didn't bother to give any feedback, just the grade for the proposal."

"Take my word for it, he's impressed by you."

The timer on the lab bench had pinged.

"Back to work."

* * *

 **Author's Note** : *Invented in 1938 by German scientists and banned under Chemical Weapons treaties, the first use of sarin occurred on March 16, 1988, at the end of the Iran-Iraq war. In the Kurdish town of Halabja, about a dozen miles from the Iranian border, Iraqi aircraft appeared overhead, spreading a gas that killed over 5,000 people. Eye witnesses who survived in Halabja were utterly disoriented by the attack, as they watched birds fall from trees and animals and neighbors collapse to the ground, writhing in pain. The second confirmed use of sarin occurred on March 20, 1995, when the Japanese new religious movement known as Aum Shinrikyo used the gas on three subway lines in Tokyo, killing 12 and injuring and producing symptoms in thousands of others. And now thanks to the Russians, we have Novichok (Russian: Новичо́к, "newcomer"/ "newbie") a series of nerve agents developed by the Soviet Union and Russia between 1971 and 1993, and deployed in 2018 in Salisbury, England, less than thirty miles from where I live.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9** **: Attraction**

* * *

At the next physio appointment, Sherlock is passed as fit to start bearing weight on the walking boot. On the way out, he leaves the crutches in the clinic loo, a fact that Victor raises when he hobbles out.

"The physio said you should keep them, just in case."

"No. Not in _my_ case. They've wrecked my balance long enough."

Victor tries to make him see reason, but in his current mood, Sherlock is not listening. In the taxi on their way back to the flat, he announces that he will leave the flat before Chloe gets back. He leans forward and raises his voice to get the driver's attention. "Can you wait at Saxon Street? I'll want to go to Burrell's Fields from there."

"Okay, mate; but it's like really narrow with double yellow lines. If someone else comes up the road, I'll have to move on, go around the block. The meter's going to be running, so don't hang about."

Victor can only roll his eyes at Sherlock struggling to get out of the cab in front of 6 Saxon Street. For once, he doesn't offer a helping hand; maybe it will help Sherlock realise that he still needs the crutches for just this sort of thing.

Oblivious to the lesson he is supposed to have learned, Sherlock eventually manages to get to his feet on his own and hobble inside the door that Victor has opened. Once they're inside the flat, Victor helps him quickly get his things together.

As Sherlock is stuffing his clothes into a left-over Burberry shopping bag of Chloe's, Victor asks, "How are you planning on getting back and forth to the lab?"

"The walk between Burrell's Fields and the Chemistry department is just the sort of exercise the physio says I should be doing."

Sherlock misses another one of Victor's eye rolls, because ever since the physio appointment, he's been avoiding eye contact. "You're supposed to take it _easy_ at first. That's a twenty-minute walk over rough ground and uneven pavements. You'll strain it if you do the whole thing twice a day."

"If it hurts, I'll take a taxi. Now that I'm off the crutches, it's no longer your problem."

Truth be told, Victor is more concerned about what other things Sherlock will and won't do once he is out of the stricter regime that has evolved during his time at the flat. As a sportsman, Victor has to keep to a regular routine of good food and sleep, neither of which seem to be a part of Sherlock's normal repertoire. Victor knows that the injury has healed better for his making sure Sherlock attends his physio appointments and ensuring that he gets enough to eat and sleep. As the physio had said when he assigned the next appointment in a month's time, "You've made good progress, but don't think this is over. It wasn't a routine rupture; the accompanying muscle damage inevitably prolongs the recovery period. It will take at least another two months in the boot and then more after that before you are back to normal. And, you'll have to keep up with the exercises every night."

Victor wonders if this will actually happen if he isn't there to remind Sherlock. Sharing the same space made things easy in the flat; he simply prepared twice what he needed and shoved the second plate in front of Sherlock. They'd even gotten into a sports routine of sorts; Sherlock didn't seem to mind doing his own physio exercises if Victor was there doing his stretches for rugby. They didn't need to talk about it, which kept Victor from feeling like he was a nag.

He has no idea what he could say to motivate Sherlock to do what is necessary to finish the rehabilitation on his own. He's still searching for the right words when Sherlock picks up his laptop and slips the backpack onto his shoulders.

When they open the front door of the flat, the taxi is no longer there.

"Don't wait; I'm sure you've got better things to do." Sherlock hobbles out onto the narrow pavement in front of the house and stares up the road where the taxi should soon re-appear.

Victor doesn't want to go. The whole situation feels awkward. He knows better than to expect Sherlock to say thank you for the time he's spent at the flat being looked after. He had, of course, been somewhat entitled to it because it was Victor's fault he'd been injured in the first place.

He realises that he doesn't want this to be the last time he sees Sherlock, but has no idea how to voice such a thing without sounding weird. If he says he wants to keep an eye on him, it will come across as patronising. Remembering how resistant the boy had been to his brother's nannying tone, it's probably the last thing that Sherlock wants to hear from anyone.

There is more, now, to their relationship, than a debt being payed – at least from Victor's point of view – but exactly what, and how to put it into words, eludes him.

As the taxi turns off Panton Street onto the top of Saxon Street, Victor knows he's only got seconds left, so he blurts out, "Can I keep coming to the chemistry lab? To work with you?"

To his surprise, Sherlock nods. "Might as well. Having already invested the time and energy to teach you the procedures, it makes sense to write that off by getting you to do more protocol runs with me. I can get more done with you helping than I could without you. I won't pay you, though."

As the cab draws up, Victor stifles a smile. "I wouldn't expect that."

Opening the back side door of the taxi and tossing in his backpack and the Burberry shopping bag, Sherlock says, "The other lab assistants get paid, so I thought maybe that was the reason why you wanted to continue."

"No, Sherlock; that's not why. Your company really is incentive enough."

Once he's seated, there is a flicker of something across Sherlock's remarkable grey and green eyes, but Victor isn't sure what it means.

"See you later, then."

Victor shuts the door and the cab drives off. It's gone fifty meters down the road before he notices that Sherlock has turned in his seat to look at him through the back window.

They're both still looking when the car turns the corner onto the main road.

oOoOoOoOoOo

"Do you really have to go back there again? It's the third night in a row, Vic. Why are you still wasting your time? What the hell for?"

"It's not a waste, Chloe."

"Wouldn't you rather stay in with me?" She pouts like a little girl and puts her hands on his chest. "We've got to make up for lost time," she purrs seductively, giving a rather obvious glance up the stairs.

Victor smiles. "You've got that mid-term paper due in tomorrow, and I know you will be working on it half the night. So, don't promise what you can't deliver."

"Maybe you'll be worth getting a lower mark."

He laughs, takes her shoulders and turns her around, giving a gentle push away from him. "Work, woman. You'll want to graduate with a good degree. It's important. I'll be home between midnight and one o'clock at the latest."

On his way up the road to the lab, Victor is smiling. A week after Sherlock had left the flat, he's finding a new rhythm, which includes preparing dinner for Chloe before she gets stuck into the television stuff, and keeping her happy in the mornings. Things seem to be getting back to normal. The lab sessions with Sherlock are not as frequent, nor as long as before, but he has taken to walking back with him across the Cam to Burrell's Fields at midnight. Nights in late November are cold, wet and miserable, and he worries that in the darkness Sherlock could fall and damage his tendon again.

Or, so he rationalises it to Chloe. The real reason Victor is happy to do the walk is that he can keep talking with Sherlock. While not exactly an avid conversationalist, on science topics he is a willing, sometimes even enthusiastic participant.

She rolls her eyes and mutters: "Pathetic."

Tonight, Victor wants to know what Sherlock thinks about the Cambridge Science Park, which is on the north eastern fringe of the city, using land owned by Trinity College. They've crossed the Cam on the Silver Street bridge when he asks: "So, who twisted Trinity Hall's arm to release the extra land for the new build? Heard anything about that?"

They spend the next ten minutes discussing the new Trinity Centre—five brand new buildings on a 22-hectare site. It had only opened a couple of months ago, a joint collaboration between Sherlock's college and its smaller neighbouring college, Trinity Hall. Victor had once thought about doing his undergraduate thesis on the subject of the whole science park development; it would have been a study of how derelict farmland could be re-purposed for high technology centres of excellence. But, his father had pooh-poohed the idea as "pointless. You won't get a job running an earl's estate such a topic."

Victor had eventually caved in when his father had pulled some strings and got him a summer internship working at Holkham Hall, the estate of the Coke family, the Earls of Leicester. They are one of the largest land owners in Norfolk, and now following a new policy of setting up their own enterprises to manage the estate rather than outsourcing that to other companies. As a business model, Victor considers it quite fascinating.

Despite having to stop once to sit on a bench so Sherlock could massage the back of his calf, the pair makes good time; there is little pedestrian traffic this late at night. They are nearly back at Burrell's Fields, walking past the main Cambridge University library building when Sherlock decides to answer Victor's earlier question. "I suspect it was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics's idea who convinced Trinity Hall. He has strong views on the subject of science centres. And it's hard to say no to a celebrity in a wheel chair."

"Wheelchair? Do you mean Hawking? Professor Stephen Hawking? Well, that's interesting." Victor finds himself wondering whether Sherlock would have actually spoken to the professor, whose reputation as a theoretical physicist is so well known that he is treated practically as a God by students and faculty alike. It isn't that far-fetched, though. Takes one genius to know another.

He decides to probe a bit more. "But, isn't he at Gonville and Caius? I didn't know he was a professor of mathematics. I thought he'd be something in astronomy or physics, given that book of his. Did you ever think about working with him? On cosmology and all that?"

As they turn off the main Burrell's Walk onto the paved path that will take them to Trinity's student accommodation, Sherlock suddenly stops under one of the street lamps lighting up the path. He grabs the lamp post and lifts his weight off his damaged leg. "Hang on; my calf is cramping again, must have sat too long in one position today." He bends to rub it, but his book bag is heavy and he nearly over-balances.

Victor grabs his arm to steady him. "Let me do it." He kneels and takes a hold of the offending limb. Beneath the trousers, he can feel the Velcro webbing and rigid plastic sides of the CAM boot, but the calf muscle itself is accessible and he begins to knead it.

When he looks up at Sherlock he realises that the boy is not watching but looking off in the distance. Next, he shakes his head, making his dark curls flop into his eyes. "Hawking did his graduate work at Trinity Hall. And, the professorship is in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. His interest was the latter, mine is the former. Maths is just a means to an end. Cosmology is a bit… too esoteric for me, and you can't really go out there to verify the theoretical models. Chemistry is an end you can actually _see_ and replicate the practical results. It makes things happen. My brother wants me to do post-graduate work in mathematics; he says the research would allow me to do what I wanted without having to work with other people. But, it's _boring._ "

Just as he says this, a group of students pours out of the library and starts to head up the path towards the Burrell's Field housing. Sherlock suddenly steps away from Victor and starts to walk off. As he stands up, Victor hears laughter from the group coming up the path, but he ignores it and catches up to the hobbling figure of his friend.

It's at the entrance to Sherlock's housing block that he says his good night and they part. For some reason, Victor decides to take the path that goes straight back to Queen's Road; he has no wish to meet those students again. There had been something in their laughter that had made him feel uneasy.

oOoOoOoOoOo

It's late afternoon when Victor leaves the rugby pitch. They've had to play the last half hour under lights; the sun sets so early in the last week of November. Things are gearing up for the big Varsity Match with Oxford in mid-December; they'll be off on warm-up matches over the next two weekends.

To make sure he's visible in the twilight commuter traffic, Victor turns on his bike lights and heads north on Grange Road; he has decided to cycle by Burrell's Fields on the off-chance Sherlock will still be in his room. If he isn't there, then Victor will have to swing by the lab, because he has to tell Sherlock that he won't be coming to the lab tonight, having agreed to attend a twenty-first birthday party with Chloe one of her friends is having at the Pitt Club.

As he runs up the three flights of stairs in the Trinity student housing block, he is glad that the buildings are new enough to have a lift – Sherlock won't have to struggle up and down.

As Victor pushes open the door onto the corridor, he hears a violin. Sherlock's door is ajar, so he peers around it to see the boy standing at the dark window, eyes closed, pulling a wonderfully melodic tune from the instrument. He's barefoot, and Victor can see that the walking boot is over by the desk, unused. His bow dances across the strings at great speed and as he plays, moving his upper body as if dancing to the tune. Spellbound, Victor waits until the playing comes to a halt on a strange discordant note, and Sherlock lowers the bow.

Without thinking Victor blurts out, "Don't let me interrupt; keep going."

"That's the end of the first part of the composition. It's a gavotte."

"But it sounds like… I don't know, like there should be another note. It leaves the audience hanging, waiting."

Sherlock turns with his eyebrows rising in surprise. "That wasn't the end of the composition, just the end of a section. You are right, though: generally speaking, the convention is that a dissonant chord must resolve to a resonant chord. Here, it is a signal to the listener that more is to come in the second part of the dance. You know music theory?"

Victor blushes a bit under the intensity of the gaze, and then curses inwardly his tendency to redden under such scrutiny. "Nooo… I just used to fool around on the trumpet." Victor does love music of all kinds—although the bouncy pop that Chloe likes so much is far from his favourite. He likes jazz and swing, mostly. At Gresham's, he'd had fun with a trumpet in an afternoon club for one term. It had fallen by the wayside when rugby became so important.

One listen to what Sherlock has been playing, and Victor now knows he is not only a scientist, but also an accomplished musician. "Not classical; not like _that._ I don't remember much of the theory stuff to be honest; it was a beginner's class, pretty basic." Feeling terribly self-conscious, now, Victor wants to backtrack. "I've a bit of a dunderhead when it comes to maths, languages and music."

Sherlock loosens the tension on his bow and puts it and the violin back in its case. "Yet you are able to get the biochemical concepts we've been working on, so why not music? It's all pretty simple, you know."

Victor shakes his head, "Maybe to you it is, but I can't really read music; probably forgotten it all by now."

Sherlock digs around in a box file on the floor under his bed, pulls out a score of a piece of sheet music, and hands it over. "You might recognise this; it's quite popular."

 _Bolero, by Ravel_. Of course, he's heard of it; who hasn't? "Torvill and Dean's Gold medal music."

"Who's… Torvill? I don't think I've heard of him."

"Uh, it's _Jayne_ Torvill and the bloke she skated with to win a gold at the 1984 Winter Olympics?"

"Oh." Sherlock looks startled, and just sort of freezes for a moment, before muttering. "I'm not interested in sports trivia." Then he's in motion again, "Doesn't matter, just as long as you know the piece. I will show you." He rifles through a long line of CDs on the bookshelf over his desk and pulls one out.

They sit side by side on the bed so that they can both see the music score while Sherlock explains, "A bolero is like a waltz, a three beat dance tempo. That's shown in this line, and here's the melody." What then follows is an enthralling discussion, with Sherlock using his CD player's pause button to stop the music and explain what is going on in the score.

After that, the violin comes out again and Sherlock starts to explain how it differs from a piano. "Any idiot can play a piano. All you have to do it hit the right key and out comes the exact note. A violin is much, much harder, because the player has constantly to correct the pitch, and not everyone has a good enough ear for that."

"Apparently, you do," Victor comments. "I don't."

"You heard the discordant note and expected more, so don't underestimate your ear for music."

Sherlock then launches into demonstrating another piece, this one a minuet. "Dance music is easiest; the beat is more obvious," he explains.

He's been at it for a few minutes, when there is a thump at the door, which is pushed open by a student.

"Keep it down, Holmes." A slightly overweight guy of medium height steps into the room. With his left hand he pushes the floppy fringe of his dark straight hair out of his eyes; the right hand is busy fiddling with the studs of a dress shirt, over black trousers. He sniffs and says in a snide voice, "Some of us like to get dressed for an evening's entertainment without your poncy soundtrack crap."

"Piss off. You wouldn't know quality music if you fell over it. I seem to recall that the last time I asked you to turn down that trash you were listening to with your girlfriend, you ignored me."

"Iron Maiden is not trash; it's heavy metal. And it would have been a bootleg copy of the Donington Live performance we were listening to. Eighty thousand at the festival and it's sold millions, unlike the ancient has-beens you inflict on our ears. Just watch out that your fiddle doesn't end up in the dumpster behind the common room back door."

Victor gets to his feet at the increasingly acid tone from the student, who is now eyeing him with a mixture of surprise and amusement.

"Oh, I didn't know you had _company_." There is an insinuation in that word which makes Victor uncomfortable.

The student sniggers. "Have we met? I seem to recognise you, but I can't quite place you. A party maybe?"

"If it was, I don't remember you." Victor knows it sounds rude, but it's true.

Recognition dawns in the student's eyes. "I remember now; it was that drinks do at the Pitt Club* at the start of term. You're Chloe's guy."

And, with that prompt, Victor remembers, too. This is the Trinity student that Chloe's best friend Alice has been dating. He can't remember the guy's name, and he's not even sure they've been introduced properly.

"Now that I think about it: Alice has been asking me about you… and Holmes. Wanted to know what I thought of the freak."

Victor is shocked by not only the casual use of such a horrible term, but by the fact that it has been said regardless of the fact that Sherlock is in the room. It is profoundly rude and provocative, enough to overcome whatever shreds of his own civility are still left.

"You will leave _now._ " Victor draws himself up to his full height and throws the student a look that he's perfected for staring across a rugby line-out: mean and menacing.

Sherlock snorts. "Don't let him bother you; not worth getting riled up over; he's just a prick." He limps around Victor and shoves the student once, forcing him to take a step back out the door. Sherlock then shuts it in his face with a slam. Turning back to face Victor, Sherlock asks "did you come by for any particular reason?"

"Oh, _no_!"

Victor realises that he has completely lost track of time. He shoves his sleeve up to look at his watch and then turns a dismayed face toward Sherlock. "Oh, shit, shit, _SHIT_! I am going to be in so much trouble."

Startled, Sherlock steps back at Victor's outburst and gasps in pain when he puts too much weight on the injured leg, which he shouldn't do when the walking boot isn't on.

Victor grabs his arm and catches him before he falls, steering him into the chair by the desk. "I'm _so_ late. I came by to say I can't help at the lab tonight, because I am supposed to be going to a party with Chloe…." He looks at his watch again as if it might tell him something else this time. "… and it started twenty minutes ago. She's going to kill me."

"I doubt that. She isn't the type; doesn't fit the psychological profile of female murderers."

Victor grabs his backpack and gives his apologies whilst getting out the door. "I'll catch you tomorrow."

oOoOoOoOo

In fact, it's three days before Victor sees Sherlock again. On the third night, at nearly ten p.m., he goes to the lab to find Sherlock working on the array again.

"Good. You've arrived just in time; I'm about to start another run."

Heaving a sigh of relief at Sherlock's matter-of-fact greeting, Victor stifles the embarrassment he still feels about the way they had parted. He hopes a light-hearted tone might suit the situation:

"I hope you didn't call the police to report a missing person or get them to investigate a murder, with Chloe being the prime suspect."

That gets him a look of incomprehension and then a shake of that head of dark, wild hair. "I wouldn't do that. As I said, she isn't the type." He turns back to the equipment. "Besides, I've learned the hard way not to contact the police when there is no hard evidence to prove a homicide."

Trying to make sense of that somewhat cryptic comment, Victor slides onto the stool that's still right where he left it days ago and starts the experiment sequence. He checks first that the timer on the heating element is set to the right sequence. He doesn't understand all the science behind it, but he is familiar with the process by now. He starts inserting the gel strips into the cell wells in the tray. He sees that Sherlock had already set a flask of the bacteria culture by the tray, and wonders if it had also been set out for him on the two previous nights. Would Sherlock have been disappointed that Victor hadn't showed up? It's hard to tell from the way he's acting now.

Victor picks up the clean pipette and starts to inject the right amount of _E. coli_ into each cell. Next, he has to cover each cell with mineral oil and then insert the electrode wicks. After that, he'll check with Sherlock that their timers are synchronised, and they'd get underway. The cells will be subjected to 50 volts at 20 degrees C, before the voltage can be ramped up. Once the proteins are fully expressed, then the process of harvesting the results would start.

Once the machines are at work, they will have waiting time, and that's when Victor has decided he will explain what had happened to stop him from coming before tonight. Even though Sherlock has not pried into what had happened, he deserves to know.

When Victor had gotten back to the flat after leaving Sherlock's rooms in a panic, Chloe had already left. A note on the bedroom door said it all: ' _Don't you dare embarrass me with a no-show'_. He'd changed into his dinner jacket as quick as he could and then cycled like a madman in his dinner jacket all the way up Trumpington Street, past Queens, St Catharine's, Kings colleges and then turned right onto Green Street just before Trinity. By the time he had arrived at The Pitt Club on Jesus Lane he was adding hot to the bothered element of his mood.

Chloe had looked incandescent with anger when he tapped her shoulder and she pivoted on her heel. "How _could_ you?"

"I'm so sorry, Chlo; time just got away from me."

"Don't you dare lie; I _know_ where you've been." She had looked pointedly across the room, to where a bloke had been standing with Alice. As he turned and saw Victor, he'd raised a glass of champagne in a sarcastic salute.

"You've been with _him._ And now, thanks to bloody Sebastian Wilkes, the whole damned Cambridge knows all about it."

For the rest of the evening, Chloe had given Victor the cold shoulder, preferring to spend the evening drinking with Alice and her date who no doubt spent the time maligning Sherlock. Victor had found the whole thing petty and irritating, but he had stuck it out at the party, talking to other people, damned if he was going to go home with his tail between his legs.

Of course, this is not what he tells Sherlock. "Sorry to have missed the last couple of nights. Chloe went ballistic about me being late to the party and I've had to do some damage control."

Sherlock shrugs. "Your time is your own. I can manage without you. If you want to stop coming, just tell me so I don't prepare stuff that won't be used."

For some reason, that nonchalance saddens Victor. Would he prefer it if Sherlock actually complained about his absence? Would that suggest he cared one way or the other if Victor is here? He finds himself wishing that were true and confused by the intensity which he wants proof of being welcome.

The next two hours fly by, punctuated by the occasional discussion of the procedures, but nothing more substantive. In an odd way, Victor has missed this for the past two nights. Quiet focus on a shared task, communication that is purposive and functional. It's so very different from the maelstrom of emotions that Chloe has been throwing at him. For just a while, he can park her outside of his mind and not worry about what she thinks about what he is doing or not doing.

They are tidying up the night's work when Sherlock rolls his stool over to his backpack on the floor and rummages about. When he returns to the lab bench, he slides an envelope towards Victor.

For one hideous moment, Victor thinks that the envelope might actually contain money, despite his protestations that he didn't want to be paid for helping. That thought _hurts_ ; it would be like throwing back in his face the honesty he'd given Sherlock when he had said he wanted to work with him because he enjoyed his company.

"Go on; open it. I hope you can make it. It's short notice now."

Victor opens it and pulls out what he soon realises is a ticket, issued by the Cambridge Live ticket office that covers most of the events in the city. Flipping it open, he discovers it's for a performance two nights away at the West Road Concert Hall. Starting at 7.30, it's a concert by something called the Academy of Ancient Music. His mind conjures up an image of a college Classics professor trying to play a lyre reciting Greek poetry. "Umm… Ah, thanks. What sort… of music qualifies as 'ancient', exactly?"

Sherlock's bow lip quirks into a smile. "Not what Wilkes would like, I'm sure. The Academy is one of the UK's premier classical music orchestras; it's a real treat to get them to Cambridge. The programme is Baroque concerti for two violins. It won't be boring – I can promise you that."

"Well, it couldn't be more conveniently located." The concert hall is less than a hundred meters from the Rugby pitch on Grange Road; Victor knows this because he regularly walks by it to get to the SPS library in the Robinson building of the University's Sidgwick Site where the main land economy books are held.

"I know; that's why I thought you might be able to make it, despite your practice ending at seven."

"How do you know I have a late practice on Thursday?"

"I phoned the club house and asked."

Victor hides a little smile. Sherlock had actually phoned to find out. He is certainly _keen._

"Yes. I can come. I'd be delighted."

* * *

 **Author's Note:**  
* The Cambridge University Pitt Club is a real private members dining club, established in 1835, in honour of Willian Pitt the Younger, the British Prime Minister. It has neo-classical premises built in 1864 on Jesus Lane which serves as a meeting place for members and their guests. It still exists today.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10: Reputations**

* * *

It turns out that Victor's prediction is half right, half wrong. Chloe does come back that night, takes one look at the box room to see that Sherlock's things are still there, but does not start screaming that she's leaving him.

He can hear her coming down the hall towards the kitchen where Victor is cooking himself dinner. He hopes that she will notice that there is enough stir fry in the wok to satisfy three people.

"He's still here." It's a statement, not a question.

"Well, not right now. He's working at the lab but will be back tonight."

He looks up from the wok to see her close her eyes and take a deep breath. She slides onto one of the bar stools at the breakfast bar and starts playing with the fork and spoon that have been put out there, opposite where Victor has put his own place setting, complete with a large glass of milk.

He serves up two of the portions onto the whole wheat noodles and puts one bowl down in front of her. "It's your favourite—chicken in plum sauce with cashews."

"We need to talk."

"I agree." He's decided to play it cool and see if he can convince her to take his own preferences into account.

"How long?"

After he swallows his first bite, Victor asks: "As in: when will he be back tonight?"

"No. I couldn't care less about that; tonight's already ruined. What I mean is just how long do you plan on having him in the flat?"

He's ready for this. "What I promised is that he'd have a place here so long as he wasn't able to put weight on his foot. It's my fault he's on crutches."

She taps the side of her plate with her chopsticks. "I've been researching." There is a defiant tone to her statement. "According to Sheila— you know, the medical student with the black hair and blue eyes that you met at last year's May Ball— she says he should have been putting his foot down last week. And that boot of his means he should be starting to put weight on it _now._ Is he putting it off, because he knows he's here until he tries?"

How like Chloe it is to do some research only when it affects her own comfort. Victor sighs. "Not everyone reacts like a medical textbook, Chlo. It's probably different when there's a lot of muscle and tendon damage, thanks to Bullseye's teeth getting in on the act. The physio said he isn't to put weight on it – or even start real physio – for at least another ten days."

"How do you know?"

"I was there. I took him to the outpatient appointment."

"Why? Why do you have to babysit this, this… _moron_?"

"Don't call him that." He tries to keep the anger out of his voice. "Unless you want to get sued by his family or for Bullseye to be put down, you'd better keep civil."

"But, Vic… He's over eighteen. He's not a kid. If he can't manage to get a taxi to the effing hospital to make an appointment, then how's he even fit to be at university?"

"Stop it; just- stop. It's my choice if I want to make sure that he gets himself sorted. You're the one who wants him to walk out of here as soon as possible, so you should be glad I'm doing my bit to help him heal."

Now, it's her turn to sigh. "So, does that mean you are planning to continue spending every available minute over the next two weeks looking after the cripple? People are beginning to _talk_ , you know."

"Talk? About what?"

"You… and _him._ Everyone knows he's not exactly nice, Vic, but it's not just that."

"What do you mean?"

She's picked up a cashew nut in her chopsticks, which she now waves at him. "Alice's boyfriend from Trinity says that the whole JCR thinks he's a queer, and a perv to boot. Gets off on figuring out who's shagging whom and what exactly they get up to; it's like he's watching them. Reels off all sorts of intimate details, as if he'd been there _in the room_ with them. It freaks people out." She pops the nut in and chews deliberately.

He won't dignify this kind of hearsay with a reply, so he takes another big mouthful off his own plate.

Undeterred, Chloe continues, "I've been making excuses to our friends, but it's beginning to wear a bit thin, love. Stories are going to start circulating, because they're beginning to notice that you aren't showing up at our usual gigs the last two weekends. And, I don't even have the excuse of saying you're at an away match. Christ knows what the rugby team must make of it, you, dancing attendance on this weirdo, instead of going down to the pub with them."

"I've never liked drinking with them, you know that. I go because they expect me to. It's a relief, actually, having something more important to do."

"Yeah, you've moaned about it enough to me. But, you also know that it's what a captain has to do. And you did it just enough to get the coach to select you as captain, so now you have to live up to it."

He finishes his chewing before he asks, "Why? Why do I have to play the game off the pitch as well as on it? It's boring."

"These are people who are important for the future, Vic, for _both_ of us. No, scratch that – our friends _are_ our future; networking and all that. Rugby pals could be business after we graduate, just like my posh girls. Wives open doors, too."

Victor takes time for another mouthful, and only after he's swallowed it, does he respond. "You know, I've come to realise that _our_ friends are actually _your_ friends, and I'm just along for the ride, an excuse to widen your social circle of people who can be used in the future. That's hardly the definition of real friends."

That makes her put down her chopsticks. "Why are you doing this? Saying these things? What's that freak _done_ to you?"

"Nothing! This isn't about him – it's about me. Maybe I've just been thinking about things, seeing things differently and wanting to make decisions about who I want to spend time with and why."

She looks shocked. "So, you don't plan on stopping seeing him when he does leave the flat?" Her voice rises incredulously.

"I don't know if he will be willing to put up with me in the lab once he catches up. But if he does, yeah, I might. I enjoy it. I like him."

Now, she is angry, and lets the cool demeanour slip away. "You know what people will say, don't you? That you're queer, too. Nobody's going to accept any other reason why you'd hang out with that sort of a guy. Think about this long and hard. Being anywhere near him is going to ruin your reputation. I've done what I can with our friends to make them think you're some kind of saint, willing to help the cretin when he's injured. I'm painting you as the hero, but that won't hold for much longer. They'll start to think that he's got some sort of hold over you, turning you gay or something."

"That's ridiculous. I have no idea what his sexual orientation is, or even if he has one, and it's private, anyway. You can't _turn_ someone gay, that's just idiotic! He's just a friend, Chloe, someone I like spending time with."

"Why?"

This is both a challenge and a demand — a question he finds hard to answer, but he does owe her this much. "Because he's different. He doesn't put up with any bullshit, doesn't say anything or do anything just because he's been told that's the way things are done. He doesn't judge me according to how I play rugby or how many supposedly important people I know, and he doesn't pick his way through conversations with the aim of pleasing other people. I don't have to pretend around him; I can just _be._ "

"He's a chemistry geek; what on earth would the two of you even talk about?"

"Sherlock doesn't need to talk to be interesting. And when we do talk, it's about different stuff than what I'm used to. Yeah, science stuff among other things. He doesn't give a damn about any of the nonsense that seems to occupy the minds of all your friends."

She's taking umbrage, and asks, "Such as?"

"For the girls, it's all about who's just spent the most money, who went on the most glamorous ski holiday, who's wearing which designer, or who their latest boyfriend is and why he's _just so important._ " He gives the phrase a Chelsea-style posh pronunciation. "What the latest trends are in fashion, wandering around showing off their hand bags like their auditioning for some modelling agency, spouting celebrity gossip about the royal family. God, it's all hideously boring."

"Well, that puts the girls in their place, mister superior. I never knew you were a reverse-snob, Vic. What about the blokes who think they are your friends? What do you think about them?"

"With the guys it's all one-upmanship, competitive bullshit about how big a salary they're going to get after graduation. Or it's nonstop sports. God, if I didn't actually like rugby, I wouldn't go near them."

"And the boys in your degree programme? What about them?"

"If they think they're smart, they're headed into the City where they'll spend their lives bragging about their bonuses and their sports cars and their trophy wives. I'm not like that, Chlo. I don't want to be that sort of a yuppie clone. The rest of them? Well, most are just doing it so they can say they have a Cambridge degree before they'll trot home to look after their daddies' estates, pretending they're glorified farmers, while they marry some suitable girl and produce a brood of brats."

"What's so wrong with that? Wanting to settle down, raise a family in a nice place with enough money to get by nicely." There's just a tinge of moral indignation creeping into her tone of questioning now.

He takes a big drink from the glass of milk, using the time to try to find the right words.

"There's more to life than toadying up to aristocrats to get a job running their estates while they spend their money or selling them farm machinery. I can do better."

She gives an incredulous laugh. "Well, remind me never to repeat that to your dad; he'll disown you. Come to think of it, he'd go apoplectic if he knew your new best friend is some queer freak." She twists her chopsticks into the noodles left on her plate and takes a mouthful. Around the food, she mutters, "What the _fuck_ has this guy done to you?"

He bangs his chopsticks down on the empty plate. "Nothing. This has _nothing_ to do with him. It's me; I've just reached the end of my patience with this kind of pointless stuff."

"Am _I_ pointless then?"

There it is, finally, the question he's been dreading. To be honest – which he won't be, because he doesn't want to examine the whole thing very carefully right now – Victor doesn't know the answer. All he knows is that he's not ready to be trapped in that sort of a life. Not yet; maybe never. He doesn't know where this could be heading, and that scares him.

To buy himself time, he shakes his head. "Of course not, Chlo. You and I have been together since we were in school. We're going to get married in the summer."

She nods. "Yes, we are, so don't you forget it."

"I haven't. Not for one moment."

oOoOoOoOo

When Victor shows up at the lab, Sherlock is in the middle of titrating a solution, for which he's setting up a new area at the far end of the lab bench. The other two arrays for the project are ready to go, but he's a bit annoyed that he has had to wait for Victor because he'd prefer the two of them to do it simultaneously, rather than one at a time on his own.

He's come to value the help. Oddly, the company of another seems to have helped him focus, rather than distract him, as he had once feared it would. He's actually enjoyed having Victor spend time with him. And, that is irritating, in its own way. _What does it mean, except for a welcome change from being shunned by everyone?_

All in all, Sherlock is actually in a good mood. His leg is hurting him less, so he gets more rest, and his error rate on the repetitions has improved significantly. Thanks to the extra pair of hands, he has more contingency time. That helps the results, and he's happy about that. By the end of next week, he will have finished the first stage of the project, and have all of his gel strips completed, and they will be left to sit in the freezer at minus 80 degrees. After Christmas, he has booked the time he needs with the Fluor S-multi image scanner. He'll be using a brand new, two-dimensional gel analysis software tool from America called PDQuest that will help him isolate the proteins he's after and then start on the more serious work of excising the proteins of interest from the gel. Then, he can begin analysing them using the MALI-TOF. The mass spectral data will then be subjected to a protein prospecting software analysis.

It's frustrating in one sense that he has to demonstrate the robustness of the experimental protocol on such a boring subject as _E coli_ , but Professor Lay has insisted.

If only he could convince Victor to keep helping him, Sherlock might even be able to finish the whole protocol project early and get started on the proposal for his final year project. That's the experiment he really wants to do; this solution he's making at the moment is one step in identifying a possible human blood interaction with a toxin to be traced using his new protocol.

All these promising developments mean that he's better able to accommodate the fact that Victor is twenty-three minutes late tonight. So, he limits the amount of snark in his tone; to his ears, his question sounds reasonable: "What took you so long?"

"Chloe came home; I needed to talk to her." Victor opens his backpack and pulls out a Tupperware box and a plastic fork. "Eat this while it's still warm."

"I like cold Chinese."

Victor laughs. "How the hell can you tell that it's stir fry? You weren't there when I cooked it and I haven't said a thing."

"The nose knows. Soy sauce has a particular fermented bean scent. And, you use a spiced wok oil; chili has capsaicin which is a vanilloid in a compound family that includes stuff like eugenol—that's in bay leaves, allspice, and cloves— and zingerone, which gives ginger and mustard their distinct flavours. The fat spatters when you cook, and the droplets are on your clothes. Chicken with cashews in plum sauce. I can smell them from here."

Victor just smiles and shakes his head. "This deduction thing of yours… Can it tell you how the conversation went?"

Sherlock considers the question and then scrutinises the tall blond. It is still disconcerting for him to realise the sheer _size_ of Victor; the young man is not only taller, but his physical bulk of muscle is a bit daunting. Those muscles are relaxed at the moment; he can tell that even through the loose sweatshirt that Victor has taken to wearing.

"She's not left you then."

"Not yet."

Sherlock hears the ambivalence in that qualification but decides not comment. Over the years, he has learned that others take offence when he says things about their relationships. He tends now to do it only in self-defence, using it as a weapon to ward off aggression or bullying. He's found that words can wound worse than his fists, and he has no desire to do that to Victor, who has been resolute in his kindness to him for reasons that Sherlock has yet to understand.

"Did you tell her that I'll be gone soon? I've nearly caught up now, so I'll not need to take up any more of your time. In fact, you don't have to stay tonight. I can just do these runs sequentially and go back to my room later. In fact, I might just stay here all night, and do a bit more of this." He gestures at the bubbling flask in front of him.

Victor sinks onto one of the rolling stools and positions himself at the second array of glassware. "I don't want to go back to the flat; I prefer staying here with you. And, somebody's got to make sure you don't stay up too late and fall asleep on the job."

Victor's preference for his company over other activities greatly puzzles Sherlock. He can see the obvious benefit of having Victor's help, but he does not understand what appeal this experiment could have to him. Why would a rugby-playing land economy student willingly give up his evenings to spend time doing what he must think is boring and repetitive work? Even to Sherlock, who actually enjoys the meticulousness and perseveration that is needed to replicate an experiment enough times to justify the protocol, this lab work can become rather routine. This is why he's been keeping his mind active by thinking about next year's project.

At first, he had wondered if Victor could simply be motivated by some sense of responsibility – that this is the work of garden-variety guilt. He doesn't quite understand guilt as a concept; it seems dysfunctional. Why feel bad about something one has limited control over? It's not like Victor had _ordered_ the dog to attack him.

Sherlock has so little experience of what could motivate the young man to be so helpful that it has become an intriguing mystery, and he has been slowly teasing out information to test a number of hypotheses.

"Is she doing her television research tonight, making you want to stay to avoid the soap operas?" Sherlock had found out that Victor loathed this genre of television.

"No, she's gone off to stay tonight with her friend Alice. She said she felt like she needed a drink."

"Then you'd have the flat to yourself, to do whatever you want. Why would you bother coming here?"

"For the pleasure of your company, Sherlock."

He processes this comment, parsing it down into bite-sized pieces so he can better understand it. Is Victor being sarcastic? No one has ever said being in Sherlock's company is a pleasure, so maybe this is a dig? Mycroft is the only one who has been willing to tolerate him for any length of time, but that's in part because he always sees it as an opportunity to lecture him on what he should or should not be doing. Victor doesn't do that; well, not much. He simply does what is needed to get Sherlock to do boring things like eat, sleep and get to the physio appointments, and does not seem put-upon by doing so. Sherlock doesn't even bother giving a token protest anymore to Victor's fussing over him; the faster the boring stuff is over, the faster he can get back to the lab.

Could the allure here be the novelty? Sherlock knows that he is completely different from the rest of Victor's friends, some of whom have stopped by the flat on weekends or in the evenings. When they show up, he makes a hasty retreat to the lab or stays in the box room with headphones on. Chloe's volume is painful enough; put other people in the room and the noise in the small flat is hard to bear, even with the door shut; it's why he'd insisted on a single room when he came up to Cambridge last year. His first two school years at Harrow had been a nightmare of trying to cope with a more typical human sharing his living space. Maybe Victor just wants some peace and quiet as well, and the lab is just a convenient place to hide out from Chloe.

He twiddles the knob of the titrating flask one last time and checks the temperature again.

"What are you doing over there?" Victor asks, watching him.

His curiosity is something that Sherlock has come to appreciate. He doesn't get much opportunity to talk about his work. With only a GCSE in chemistry, Victor needs explanations to be simple, and such things are challenging to formulate. This is the first time that Sherlock has ever enjoyed trying to think of the work in ways that would make sense to someone who isn't an expert.

"While I was waiting for you, I thought I might get started on next year's project. We have to hand in the draft proposal at the end of May, so I need to decide which toxin to use." He looked at the steady drips of the blue fluid entering the flask at the bottom. "I'm extracting a solution of aconitine from the roots of the garden plant commonly called monkshood. The botanical garden curator let me harvest the roots off plants he was dividing."

Victor eyes the mortar and pestle a little suspiciously. "Am I right to assume it's poisonous to humans?"

Sherlock nods, realising that Victor has a good memory, remembering that this is what Sherlock had mentioned when he first showed up in the lab. "Aconitine is the toxin, and yes, lethal. Monkshood has been known as a poison for centuries; it used to be called wolf's bane and the queen of poisons. What is interesting for my experiment is that aconite poisoning doesn't leave any distinctive evidence post-mortem. It interferes with the flow of ions across the cell membranes in many tissues and disrupts the functioning of a number of organ systems so even the symptom profile is very unspecific. Death seems to involve arrhythmia, probably resulting from disturbed electrical conduction due to calcium ion flow disturbances, which is convenient because ventricular fibrillation leaves no trace in the heart muscle that a pathologist could pick up on. I want to see if I can capture the initial protein formation that triggers that response and the cascade of symptoms."

Victor reaches out to tip the mortar just so that he can see the contents, but Sherlock shoves it out of his reach.

"Don't touch that! Poisoning can occur just by skin contact." Sherlock lifts his hands to show that he's wearing blue disposable gloves. "It is very rapidly and easily absorbed; even gardeners have died handling the plants without protection. Aconitine is the only crystallisable alkaloid, but I have to do this preparation first to purify it, get rid of the acids, the starch and the other alkaloids—benzaconine and aconine. I'm not really supposed to be doing this in an open lab. Once I finish tonight, I will have to spend an hour sterilising everything."

"Why have you chosen this monkshood thing?"

Sherlock can't resist a smirk. "Like I said, it's been used as a poison for thousands of years. If you're into Greek mythology, it was said to be an invention of Hecate, made from the foam of Cerberus. The old men of Ceos were condemned to drink it when they became infirm and a burden on the state. Medea used it in the cup of poison she prepared for Theseus."

Victor starts laughing. "I would never have assumed that something so… unscientific as Greek mythology would have appeal for you."

Sherlock follows a shrug with a frank admission. "It was always a big thing with my family." He's still smiling when he adds, "It does have the advantage that I can manage to get my hands on enough quantity of the raw material by just buying lots of the plants at a garden centre. Two-year-old plants are the most toxic."

"Is there an antidote?" Victor sounds a bit nervous.

"It's a neurotoxin that opens one type of voltage-gated sodium channel; if you are lucky enough to know that you've been exposed to it, then you can try to treat the arrhythmias with drugs and temporary pacing and treat convulsions with anti-epileptics and benzodiazepines. I assume modern intensive care has something to offer for the potential hypotension as well. Otherwise, treatment is symptomatic." Sherlock can't resist a smirk. "Common foxglove – digitalis – is what medieval herbalists tried using. It didn't work very often; it's pretty lethal stuff in its own right, so getting the dosage right is tricky without a modern, standardised pharmacological preparation."

"I never look at a flower border the way you do—like a supermarket for poisons." Victor is smiling as he says this, so Sherlock decides it isn't meant as an insult.

"How do you get from a bacterium that causes food poisoning to this sort of thing?"

Here Sherlock grimaces slightly. "It's a bit complicated if you don't know the ins and outs of neurobiology and neurochemistry, but it's about using this protocol to track what happens to proteins during exocytosis. If it were possible to develop a database of normal protein formations and then compare it to how different toxins change that formation, then it could be possible to form a rapid blood test to spot the presence of a toxin which is otherwise untraceable."

"Oh."

Sighing at the lack of comprehension that expressed, Sherlock adds "…Meaning that more criminals will go to jail for killing people. It's kind of useful."

A smile lights up Victor's face. "So, let's do something useful, and get started, shall we?"

* * *

 **Author's notes:** The E. coli experiment described above is now an experiment in a number of undergraduate courses, but back in 2000 it would be truly cutting edge. Sherlock's project to use the techniques to explore how untraceable biochemical toxins can be identified is based on neurochemistry. The vesicle cycle which transmits between cells is highly regulated via essential vesicular and plasma membrane proteins that mediate the various steps including neurotransmitter being loaded into vesicles, docking, priming, calcium sensing, exocytosis, and recycling. Despite the progress in understanding the roles of individual proteins using biochemical and genetic methods, much remains unknown today – eighteen years later – regarding the sequence and kinetics of protein–protein interactions that drive vesicle recycling. It's a shame that Sherlock isn't able to finish this research because [spoiler redacted].


	11. Chapter 11

There is a moment on Thursday when Victor wonders whether he should just lie to Chloe and say that he is going to be at the lab tonight from 7.30 onwards. But, his conscience gets the better of him, and he tells her the truth. Besides, there should be nothing wrong with going to a concert with a friend.

She rolls her eyes. "What happened to ' _out of sight; out of mind'_? I thought you'd stop wasting your time with him. And long-hair music… How dull. If you'd said you were going for a night out with the boys, I'd get it. But a concert of stuff like that? I don't get it. Holmes is a _loser_ , Vic. You should hear what Sebbie says about him."

"Wilkes is a stuck-up twat. I wouldn't believe a thing he says about anyone. I don't get what Alice sees in him; I've always thought she'd be intelligent enough to steer clear of idiots."

Chloe laughs. "His family is loaded; some big noise in the City. Sebbie lives on the same corridor as Holmes; he's seen and heard the Freak for months. That's what everyone at Trinity calls him, by the way, in case you haven't heard. Apparently, he talks to himself. He won't go near any of the common rooms anymore or eat in the college dining rooms because he's made so many enemies."

Victor just waits it out. She'll have her say, and he knows better than to interrupt.

"One of Sebbie's cousins is going to Oxford now, doing PPE at Balliol; the guy was at school with Holmes at Harrow. Told him a tale about Holmes annoying his lab partner so much in chemistry class that the guy flipped out, tied him to a tree, pissed on him and then left him there all night. Got expelled for it and all; but his last words as he left were that it was totally worth it just to get back at the guy*. So, maybe playing with him in the chemistry lab isn't such a good idea, Vic; from what I hear, he's not got a single friend, not even amongst the nerd brigade."

He crosses his arms and just looks at her.

Finally, she shrugs. "Well, so be it. I suppose music is marginally more interesting than playing Igor to the mad scientist. On Thursday night I'll be out with the girls; it's a Rag Week** thing run by Sophie. So don't expect me to come home sober. When's the concert over?"

"Nine thirty."

She laughs. "We'll just be hitting our stride then. You could always join us after you put the kid to bed."

"No, I won't. After the concert is over I'll have just enough time to get to the SPS library before it closes to pick up the photocopies I need for my next assignment. It's due next Wednesday. I'll be home studying when you get back."

She blows him a kiss. "I'm looking forward to it. Warm up the bed."

oOoOoOoOo

Victor is sitting quietly as the concert hall fills up around him. Sherlock had told him that he would meet him at the seats; he was attending something called the "pre-concert talk" which was to be held in one of the side rooms starting an hour before the main event.

The fact that the West Road Concert Hall is part of Cambridge University's School of Music is evident in the number of additional rehearsal rooms and lecture theatres in the same building. That said, Victor is surprised to find how big the concert hall is—it seats nearly five hundred.

It suits him to arrive early. He has not admitted it to Sherlock, but he's never actually been to a classical concert before. He's bought a programme and read it through, trying to work out just what he's let himself in for. Despite the weird name, it turns out that the Academy of Ancient Music is really famous, and responsible for starting the revival of concert performances using something called "period" instruments – which were actually made during the era when the music being performed was written – or modern reconstructions of them.

The concert tonight is four pieces, two of which Victor thinks he's heard of: Bach's Second and Third Brandenburg Concertos. Racking his brain, he tries to remember where he'd come across them—probably at school. After the interval, two more works will be performed, and the composer is one Victor has never heard of before: Dario Castello, an Italian who died in 1658, according to the programme. _Jeez; that really is ancient._ Victor's not sure if he's ever heard any music that old.

The hall around him is beginning to fill up; a glance at his watch shows it's only ten minutes to go before the concert starts; he's getting anxious about where Sherlock might be. He checks his ticket to be sure that he's in the right seat: Row P, Seat 18. It's four rows back from the stage and his seat is on the aisle, so he keeps on having to get up to let the other people in. As the seats are taken, he starts to worry.

A few of the performers meander onto the stage. It's smaller than he had expected: only about ten music stands and no chairs. What little he knows about orchestras is based on being in the same living room as his dad when the Last Night of the Proms has been on the BBC. Big orchestra, all seated, backed by hordes of singers, and an audience that liked to sing along to Land of Hope and Glory whilst waving Union Jack flags.

Somehow, Victor doesn't think that is going to be happening tonight.

The rest of the performers have made it onto the stage now, and Victor stares at one of them carrying a brass instrument that he doesn't recognise; it resembles trombone in terms of its length, but as soon as the performer takes his position at the front right-hand stand, the other musicians start tuning up their instruments. Two of the musicians are playing something that looks like giant wooden recorders: that's an instrument that he'd seen first in prep school. The violins look pretty normal, except for the one at the back, a very peculiar thing hanging from a strap around the performer's neck. It looks like a giant-sized violin, or some sort of really weird guitar. In the back Victor can see an odd-looking piano — too long and thin to be one, so he thinks this might be a harpsichord. He's seen those in movies.

Just as he is beginning to think Sherlock has stood him up, Victor sees him walking along the front of the auditorium, just below the level of the stage, hobbling rapidly up the aisle towards him. Sherlock's head is down and he's focusing on his feet as he pushes past Victor's knees and drops into the empty seat next to him. He's breathing heavily.

"Cutting it a bit fine. You okay?"

Sherlock's busy shoving his backpack and jacket under the fold-down seat, but Victor can hear his reply. "I hate this bit. The noise, the bright lights… _too many people_. I'll be okay once they dim the lights."

As if his plea has been heard, the lights go down and the room goes silent. As a grey and balding man in tails walks on, which elicits polite applause from the audience. Victor realises this must be the conductor since he is carrying a short white baton. He takes his place on a small raised dais, and taps the music stand in front of him.

And then, they are off.

The guy carrying the only brass instrument on the stage raises it to his lips, one-handed, and proceeds to pour out the most amazing high trumpet sound*. Victor's eyes widen. Where the hell are the keys? Or the valves? How can he possibly be doing all that using just his lips, creating so fast, so clean a sound? He can feel his mouth drop open in astonishment.

For the next five minutes he is transfixed by the one-handed playing of the trumpeter weaving his magic through the other woodwinds. Now, he gets the name; these _are_ actually wood; not even the flute is made of metal. He can see that the violins and that weird instrument are playing, but it seems to be background to the bubbling tune that is emerging from the trumpeter.

Sooner, rather than later, it is over. Victor is startled by the fact that no one applauds, but before he can whisper a question to Sherlock, the little band has started off again. This time, only four of the musicians play. Two things, which to Victor's eyes look like big wooden recorders, are joined by one violin and then that thing hanging by a strap. The piece is slow and stately, but he finds it disappointing that the trumpeter is just standing by like the other musicians in waiting.

He has time to look at the programme again and realises that this is the second of three parts in the piece. So _that's_ why there'd been no applause. He glances over at Sherlock whose eyes are fixed on the tall violin player. The violinist's dark hair flops across his eyes at times, as he plays, his body moving gently in time to the beat that seems to be coming from the other bigger stringed instrument behind him.

In the third movement, the trumpeter returns, and Victor just listens in delight again. He'd give a lot to be able to figure out how the man manages to do all of the notes with just his lips and his lungs; it seems a magic trick. He can remember how hard it was to get his own lips to obey the rules of a proper embouchure and spending hours trying to get the right buzz.

oOoOoOoOo

When the applause dies down, the lights come up in the auditorium and people are rising to their feet. Sherlock squeezes his eyes tightly shut and waits for the sensory onslaught.

"Intermission?"

Victor's tenor voice cuts into that cocoon. It's always made him smile, that voice; unexpected register for someone so tall. That muscular chest sort of comes in his mind with a deep bass. Without thinking, Sherlock opens his eyes and snaps, "It's called an interval."

Victor tries to hide a smirk, but Sherlock can see it anyway with his peripheral vision. Unfortunately, that's not all he sees, as a kaleidoscope of clashing colours and bright ceiling lights collide in his optic nerves. To make matters worse, someone to his right is now saying "excuse me" in a rather cross tone. This is the part he hates, so he just turns sideways in the chair and tucks his feet up, hugging his knees, so that the people seated to his right can push their way past. Victor is too tall to do this, so he has to get up, which Sherlock is glad about because it means he will stop talking.

Right now, he needs to limit the amount of data coming in; it's all a bit too much, when he's already strung out on all the musical input he's just enjoyed. He needs to shut down a bit, because the second half of the concert is what he's really here to see. The Brandenburgs are too predictable and well-known, nothing exceptional about them; the highlight is the Castello pieces. He's never heard the composer's works played live before, so wants to save energy and focus for that.

He closes his eyes and counts the passage of five people past his seat.

"Aren't you going to get up?"

When he opens his eyes, Victor is looking down at him with a question on his face, as if confused.

"No."

"Um, isn't the interm... _val_ when people get something to drink or eat?"

"Not interested." The thought of adding food to a stomach already churning with synesthetic nausea is just about impossible.

Victor looks to the back of the auditorium where Sherlock knows the crowds will be pushing their way into the lobby.

"Why not?"

Sherlock looks away from Victor as he turns in the seat, so he can straighten his legs and slouch even lower down into the chair. "Just… not." He closes his eyes and starts to rehearse in his mind the opening bars of the Castello concerto. The second violin should sound as if it's chasing the melody carried by the first violin.

Victor sits down next to him.

Annoyed, Sherlock keeps his eyes closed. "You must be hungry; you've not had time for a meal after your practice."

"No. But then neither have you is my guess."

"Irrelevant."

"Maybe we can get something on the way back to the lab?"

"I won't be going to the lab tonight."

"Oh."

Victor sounds surprised. Why should he be surprised? Sherlock tries to pick up in his head from where he'd left off in the score for the Castello. He's rehearsing the fingering for the tricky session in the middle of the first movement.

"Why not?"

His concentration shattered, Sherlock sighs. "Because by the time the second half is over, I will be in a bit of a state. Trying to concentrate on the music despite all the… _distractions_."

"Such as?"

He stops himself just in time from saying, "You." That wouldn't do. He doesn't want to offend Victor; after all, he's the one who invited him, even if the reality is proving to be more challenging to manage than he'd anticipated. Seated this close to Victor, he's even more aware of the size and physical presence of him than normal. It isn't a nuisance, not really – Sherlock had been intrigued to see the effect the music had made on him in the first half; he finds it hard to imagine what it must be like to hear and see a concert for the first time ever. No, Victor is a distraction because he continues to be a source of fascination, in more ways than one, and some of them rather confounding.

Sherlock opens his eyes and waves his right hand to the empty seats to his right. "People. Like the man sitting in seat P13, next to his wife in P12."

Victor leans forward to look around Sherlock, and then confusion knits his brow. "There's no one sitting there."

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "Not now, you idiot. I meant during the concert. They just crossed in front of us; didn't you notice?"

"Notice what?"

A sigh escapes his lips without even realising it. "The man is having something of a mid-life crisis, given his age. Office-based worker, something boring but he's senior enough in a small enough company that he can get away with an affair with a much younger woman, probably his secretary which is an abuse of his authority, but she allows it because it means she's overpaid for what she does. The wife is part of the problem; I mean, did you see the outfit she was wearing? Must be at least a decade or more out of fashion. She spent the first half of the concert worrying about her second, no, probably third child who is in his or her first year of university. She's struggling with empty-nest syndrome and has taken to day time drinking, put on weight, rather let herself go, but he's not noticed, because he can't smell a thing."

"What? How could you possibly know all that? You're making all this up."

"No, of course not. The evidence is quite obvious."

Victor looks around Sherlock at the row of empty seats. "How? What evidence?"

He takes a deep breath. The faster he explains, the quicker he will be able to return to his mental rehearsal of the Castello piece. "Right. Firstly, he has a smear of lipstick on the inside of his right hand, in the webbing between the thumb and his index finger. It's a brown rich tone, very fashionable at the moment, and something that his wife wouldn't be caught dead wearing. If she can be bothered, she sticks to the pink pastels of the 1970s. Secondly, he's got far too much aftershave on, trying to mask a perfume that isn't hers. She's a traditionalist, that charm bracelet she's played with all through the music has three charms on it, one per child. She goes for Chanel Number Five —which she has doused herself in, hoping to mask the scent of the sherry that she had just before coming out, even though it clashes horribly with the Listerine that she'd gargled with. What's on his jacket is something called Lolita, which he probably bought for his mistress in duty free on his latest overseas business trip, that's why I think she's a lot younger than he is; living a bit of a fantasy for him."

Victor looks shocked. "You can smell all that? See those things?"

"Yes." Sherlock is a bit terse with it, expecting the inevitable reaction.

"You got all that just from them walking by you sitting there? That's _amazing_."

"Most people think it's a bit weird."

Victor is thinking. Sherlock can almost see the gears going around.

"No. I'm not going to say anything like that about you or Chloe. I'm not an idiot."

"Is this what gets you into trouble with people like Wilkes?"

"Only if he's being a nuisance."

"Well, I guess I'm special, then."

Sherlock just hums an agreement to that and closes his eyes again.

But, Victor doesn't seem willing to leave him in peace. A moment later, he shifts in his seat again. "And it's like that, what with _everyone_ in the place?"

Keeping his eyes closed, Sherlock nods, but then realises that Victor might not have seen it. Reluctantly, he answers, "Yes, if I let it. It takes a lot to block stuff out." Right now, he is having a lot of trouble blocking out the scent of Victor—the shampoo and soap he has used for his quick shower at the rugby club less than an hour ago is barely masking the aroma of a physically active male. Sherlock nearly groans from the pleasurable reaction it is stimulating in him.

 _Not now!_ This would be highly embarrassing. For the past weeks, he's been able to compartmentalise and banish such frivolous and ridiculous thoughts. At Victor's flat, the presence of Chloe has been an effective antidote to any such imagery; he behaves rather relentlessly heterosexually in her presence and Sherlock finds her intolerable. At the chemistry lab, Sherlock can mostly keep himself from even thinking in that direction; the science demands his concentration.

Right now, is a whole other matter. After forty minutes of trying to lose himself in the music of the first half, Sherlock is forced to admit that a major part of the pleasure of the concert has been seeing Victor reacting to it. He can really only dimly imagine what it would be like to hear music like this for the first time. Clearly, Victor is enjoying himself, and Sherlock hugs that fact to himself in secret delight. He _likes_ surprising Victor, bringing new things to his attention, offering new experiences to him. It's reduced the tedium of the routine in the lab; as much as he needs to demonstrate the effectiveness of the new protein expression protocol he is developing, even he gets bored by the sheer repetition. Having Victor there introduces a whole new angle to the experience.

There is a series of chiming bongs on the hall's PA system, announcing the end of the interval.

oOoOoOoOoOo

Victor is still smiling as he walks up the pavement on West Road towards the library. Sherlock had stayed behind to wait for the crowd to disappear before leaving; the second half had seemed pretty intense for him. At one point in the second of the two concertos for two violins, Victor had realised that Sherlock had his left hand, palm upwards on his own leg, with his fingers doing a strange sort of dance. It had taken a moment for Victor to realise what he was doing. Where most guys his age would be in a dorm room playing air guitar along with their favourite riffs, Sherlock was playing air violin to a live performance by a professional musician.

When the final applause died down, Sherlock had waved him off with a curt promise to see him in the lab tomorrow early, so they could "make up for lost time."

"Not lost, Sherlock. It was great. Thank you for inviting me," Victor had said.

As the occupants of seats P12 and 13 made their way past where Sherlock was sitting, Victor had given the pair a thorough look. The middle-aged bloke was looking at his phone, presumably for missed messages. "Going to have to get back to the office, dear. Something's come up."

This time, Victor _had_ smelled the perfume on his tweed jacket as the man hurried past him, leaving his upset wife behind.

But, he hadn't had the time to explore this little drama any further with Sherlock, not if he was going to make it to the Economics library before it closed at ten o'clock. He needs those photocopies if he's going to get the paper done tomorrow.

He picks his way through the crowd exiting the concert hall and spots a couple of Rag Teams shaking their collecting buckets at the dispersing audience. One set of medical students, complete in scrubs stained with fake blood, are wheeling a trolley with a third student faking some horrible injury. They are shouting out "Save a life; donate your pocket change and the kid lives." Worthy, but not very original, and they look very out of place in the music crowd.

On the other side of the square lingers a posse of girls scantily dressed in weird pink tutus with fairy wings. Their faces are heavily made up with bright red lipstick and glitter; a few are carrying wands and blowing bubbles. One is carrying a sign that says _Kisses £1_ and another's sign reads _Glitter Bombing on Request_. Victor can hear the shrieks of laughter as someone must have bought the offer, and some poor man is getting surrounded. Unlike the med students, the girls' change buckets look heavy. They must be working all the concerts and club venues tonight, looking for guys wanting to prank their friends and enjoying a good look at the troupe in the process.

Victor turns right on the path between the Faculty of English and the Divinity School; pedestrian traffic is lighter here. As he looks ahead, he sees another one of those Rag girls, this one is on her own, in the tutu and fairy wings. A second later, he recognises Chloe, who dances up to him, waving her wand. "A pound for a kiss, mister," she laughs.

"I should have realised it was your Girton lot; just the sort of thing you'd do. Had lots of fun, have you?"

"It's in a good cause. Lots of guys willing to pay for it," she says, provocatively. Chloe runs her hands under his jacket and pats his chest with her fingertips. "I'll take an IOU from you." There's alcohol on her breath, and she totters a bit on her high heels.

"I have to get to the library before it closes."

She puts on an exaggerated pout. "You had time to play with the freak, but don't have time for a kiss from me. Well, at least he's getting _exactly_ what he deserves for keeping you all to himself tonight." She giggles and her gazes momentarily lingers somewhere behind Victor.

He works through the meaning of what Chloe's just said, turns on his heels and starts running back towards the concert hall.

* * *

Author's Notes:

* As covered in my story in Exfiles, the chapter entitled "Exegesis".

** Rag Week = "Raise and Give" charity weeks run by students at UK universities, with a long standing history of disorderly conduct (dating from the 19th century). The Oxford English Dictionary states that the origin of the word "rag" is from "An act of ragging; esp. an extensive display of noisy disorderly conduct, carried on in defiance of authority or discipline", and provides a citation from 1864, noting that the word was known in Oxford before this date". My beta, unfamiliar with this British concept, was rather confused by the term and wondered if the girls might have been celebrating their ovulation cycles synchronising due to co-habitation in the same dorm.

*** The second Brandenburg Concerto has a high F part for the "natural" trumpet or clarino as it was once called, which in most modern performances is played on a valved trumpet that was made in the 19th century. Sherlock would consider that "cheating". Watch here for an authentic performance of the first movement: it's only four minutes long, but sublime. The first movement of the second Brandenburg Concerto was chosen as the first musical piece to be played on the Voyager Golden Record, a phonograph record containing a broad sample of Earth peoples' sounds, languages, and music sent into outer space with the Voyager Probes.


	12. Chapter 12

After Victor has run the seventy meters back to the concert hall exit, it takes him little time to spot the clot of girls he's looking for. They are surrounding a figure down on his knees, body hunched over and arms over his head in an obvious attempt to stop whatever is taking place. Victor can barely see Sherlock because the girls are bent over him doing something. There are whoops of laughter and the flash bulb of a camera going off repeatedly.

Only a few other pedestrians are left in the area, and they walk by, presumably because they think it is merely another Rag Week stunt.

" _Get off him!_ " Victor yells.

The girls just laugh, until Victor grabs one of them by the arm and hauls her bodily off their hapless victim. She staggers backwards on her high heels, loses her balance and ends up in a heap.

One girl shouts, "Hey, take it easy. No need to get for anyone to get their knickers in a twist." She laughs. "Stand back, girls. Time to admire our handiwork."

They stand in a ring, encircling Victor as he kneels down beside the boy who is hanging his head down.

"Sherlock. Are you alright? Let's get you away from here."

" _Don't touch me!_ "

This is yelled in a voice that is definitely _not_ alright _._ Sherlock lets his hands drop and climbs shakily to his feet on his own, and Victor is able to see what they've done. The boy's face is smeared with bright red lipstick, and his hair and clothes are covered in glitter which is reflecting back in the light of the street lamp outside the concert hall. Sherlock's dark jacket is open, half pulled off of him and a pink tutu has been shoved over his head to pin his arms back. Across his light blue* sweatshirt, two words have been scrawled in lipstick: _Fairy Queen._

One look in Sherlock's eyes is enough to appal Victor. Humiliation, rage and fear all war for dominance. One of the girls snaps another photo, the camera flash an explosion of light right into his face. Sherlock just shoves the girl aside and bolts into the night, hobbling as fast as he can on his damaged leg. He pulls the tutu over his head and throws it into the ground before he's even gone halfway across the West Road.

Without hesitation, Victor follows, terribly worried about his friend yet without a clue what to do. As he reaches the pavement, he can see Chloe coming up the path, looking ridiculous as she is trying to run in her heels. Victor snarls, " _Piss off!",_ before he turns his back on her and runs to catch up with Sherlock.

The stumbling walk back to his rooms in Burrell's Fields passes without another word being exchanged. Sherlock won't talk to Victor – maybe he _can't_. The sensory stuff that Victor had learned about at the hospital and tonight at the concert must be playing up and Sherlock's Achilles tendon injury is surely being aggravated by the brisk walk; it is plain to see that by the time they get to the dorm, he can barely hobble.

The ruined Cambridge sweatshirt ends up tossed in the bin by the lift.

Once safely in his dorm room, Sherlock retreats into the shower and takes his time there, eventually emerging with a face scrubbed so raw that it looks almost sunburned. He is in a pair of soft pyjama bottoms and a soft t-shirt turned inside out.

His eyes go wide when he spots Victor standing beside the window. "Why are you still here?" he demands, and to Victor his voice sounds odd: flat, monotone and a bit too loud.

"I'm not going anywhere. This is not a good time for you to be alone."

Sherlock doesn't argue. He just climbs into the single bed, turns off the light, and turns to face the wall, leaving Victor sitting in the dark and feeling very awkward. There is just enough light from the corridor coming in under the door for him to find the desk chair, which he pulls out and moves up against the built-in wardrobe. He sits down, thinking that he, too, needs a bit of time out to figure out what he should do next.

Going back to the flat right now is utterly impossible. Chloe will be there, and Victor is so angry right now that he doesn't think he could bear the sight of her.

In the silence of the room, he feels more than hears the sound of his phone vibrating in his pocket, next to his keys. He'd put it on silent mode during the concert. Fishing it out, he sees half a dozen missed calls, all from Chloe.

He turns off the phone.

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

It isn't until the evening of the next day that Sherlock seems to regain the ability to address what had happened. "Why? Why would they do that? I don't know any of them."

He and Victor are sitting in the Panton Arms, a quiet pub a couple of streets over from the Chemistry Department. Victor has convinced Sherlock that he needs to eat something before their lab session. He is enjoying a half pint of Greene King, while Sherlock is sticking to water as they wait for their orders of ham, eggs and chips to arrive.

Victor is in a quandary; should he tell Sherlock about Chloe being behind the whole thing? It might upset things; he doesn't want Sherlock to decide that they should stop seeing each other because of that. _It shouldn't have to be either-or._

He hates that Chloe is trying to make him choose. So, he shrugs. "Women. Who knows what they think? Or why they do the things they do?"

"You should know. You're engaged to be married to one." Sherlock looks utterly confused.

"Have you ever dated?"

Sherlock blinks rapidly. "No, not at all. I… have limited… ah… experience of being in the company of females of our age group. No female siblings, home-schooled until Harrow."

"Didn't your school arrange socials? You know, dances and the like? Gresham's had girls in the Sixth Form from 1971, and girls from Kings Lynn High School were bussed in for parties. That's how I met Chloe; she came with a friend of a friend."

Sherlock shakes his head, and Victor notices a piece of glitter still stuck in the dark curls. As their food arrives, the younger boy picks up his fork. "Harrow had a lot of stuff like that but I didn't go to any of them. Not interested."

Victor is not surprised. He doubts Sherlock's isolation from other students had started at uni.

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

When they finish that night at the lab, Victor tells Sherlock he'll walk him back to Burrell's Fields – over his objections.

"You should go home; your fiancée will be annoyed with me."

Apart from the operational conversation needed to run the experiments, this is practically the first thing Sherlock has said for the whole time Victor has been with him. "I'm sitting things out for a while." Victor doesn't want to abandon him to silence, so makes a decision. "I had a fight with Chloe; can I kip on your floor for another night?"

To his surprise, Sherlock agrees.

To try and cheer him up that evening back in the dorm, Victor asks about music; it seems a safe topic. "I enjoyed the concert, but then I've never seen a live performance by a modern classical orchestra, so is there really that much difference?"

Sherlock gives him a quizzical look. "Size alone is the biggest give-away. Most modern instrument orchestras are big; like four times the size of the ten Academy players you saw. And every modern instrument is designed to fill a big 19th century concert hall with sound, but in the days of Bach and Handel, the music rooms were much smaller; concerts were more intimate, so the sound is very different."

Victor nods, but he isn't entirely convinced. "Some of those instruments I saw on stage last night looked pretty weird, but the violins look the same."

"Let me show you." Sherlock pulls out his Walkman and he puts a CD on. Sitting side-by side on the bed so he could share one of the button earphones, Victor listens as Sherlock elaborates on his point. "This is a Bach violin concerto played on instruments made in that period."

After the first five minutes, he switches the CDs and puts on another. "The problem is that all the great solo violinists in recordings—Perlman, Zuckerman, Anne-Sophie Mutter, even Nigel Kennedy- play the soloist part on baroque instruments, mostly Stradivarius. But the rest of the orchestra can't afford it, so they use modern instruments, and their sound goes all mushy. I assume you've heard of Stradivarius violins?"

Of course, Victor has heard of them, but never understood that they were that old. To be honest, he has not been able to tell much difference between the two recordings. "I guess my ear isn't tuned enough to this. I'll have to take your word for it. So was the guy last night playing on a Stradivarius?"

"No, Pavlo Beznosiuk's violin is _really_ old: a Matthys Hofman made in Antwerp in 1676. He let me play it once."

It's a bit mind boggling that Sherlock knows someone like that violinist. Victor realises he has to adjust his thinking. Whatever his chemistry credentials are, there is clearly more to Sherlock than that. Victor's father had no time for the arts, and had steered him away from it all, much to his embarrassment now. Sherlock had obviously networked with a more cultured crowd. "How'd you meet him?"

"He was my violin tutor, briefly — before he became too famous to take on private pupils."

This confirms Victor's earlier suspicions; Sherlock is a seriously good musician. "Um… why aren't you studying music professionally? I mean, if you had a tutor like that when you were still at school?"

The question seems to sadden Sherlock for a moment. "I had an accident; broke my left hand and wrist really badly; no chance of a career as a violinist***."

Regretting his question, Victor tries to return to safer ground. "When you played his violin, was it really very different from yours?

A tentative, shy smile appears. "Not much. My violin was made in 1710 by a luthier from Cremona called Guarneri who made his violins about the same time as Stradivari."

"You mean you play on a three-hundred-year old violin?"

"Hmm. Two hundred and ninety to be precise. It's a family heirloom, which does have a lovely sound that no modern instrument can beat. Let me play for you now."

Sherlock takes his violin from the case and launches into a lengthy explanation, complete with musical demonstrations – of exactly how the baroque instrument is different from modern ones. Nine tenths of it goes straight over Victor's head, but he is very pleased that Sherlock seems happy to talk, the memory of the girls' assault no longer appearing to plague him in to silence.

oOoOoOoOoOo

Three days later, one of the perpetuators of that assault is standing next to Victor's study carrel in the library, a painful reminder that he would really, really like to make go away.

Alice is one of Chloe's friends— and one of the very few that Victor used to have time for, as the saying goes. Unlike most of her friends, Alice is more serious about her university work. The rather plain looking girl with dark hair cut short had a quiet dignity that had always appealed to him. She's reading for a politics degree and seems to be more intellectually challenging than the good-time girls that Chloe usually collects. Chloe's friend since their school days, Alice was one of the few Essex friends that Chloe had not dropped as soon as she could, lest other upper class girls know that she hadn't attended one of the posh public schools that her parents couldn't afford. She'd once told Victor that she made Alice swear not to tell anyone about their time at the comprehensive. "No need to alert the media that I'm not one of them," she'd said. "I trust Alice to keep my secret; she's my best mate." Maybe that's why she's been deputised to come to talk to him.

"You really need to talk to her, Vic. She's upset."

"So am I." Those images of Sherlock in distress are now coming back into his mind as Victor tries to concentrate on the page in the book in front of him. He wants Alice to leave.

"She wants you to come back to the flat."

He'd only been back to the flat once, at a time when he knew she'd be in a meeting with her dissertation supervisor. Victor had grabbed some clothes, toothbrush, shaving gear, his gym kit and then just walked away. He wouldn't bear the thought of just ignoring Chloe's cruelty, going back to the flat and pretending nothing had happened. She's become a squatter in _his_ flat and it annoys him intensely.

"Not unless she apologises to me, _and_ to him, in person."

"Victor… like she's really going to do that? Come on; the guy moves in and you didn't even _ask_ Chloe whether she would agree with that. Then, you spend so much time with the Freak that people are talking. About you, about her. It's all sort of weird, you know?"

"No, I _don't_ know why it's so weird."

She tries again. "It was just a prank, for God's sake. It's not like he got hurt or anything. Just a lark."

Victor has trouble forgetting what that "lark" has cost Sherlock.

He returns his gaze to his laptop. The library is quiet at this hour, which suits him. Victor has always been an early riser. He does his best studying then, before it gets too busy.

"Hey, I'm talking to you. The least you can do is look at me."

He takes a deep breath, but doesn't look up from the computer. "I'm not going to play this game, Alice. If she wants to talk to me, she's going to have to do so herself, and apologise first. And not just to me, but to him, too."

"Come on; I've come all this way to do this, and you know that she won't let up if I tell her that you wouldn't even talk to me."

 _All this way._ The library isn't that ridiculously far from Girton College, not even a mile and a half up the Huntington Road. Chloe loathed the Victorian pile; " _looks like a bloody nunnery_ " she has described it. She had moved in with him in his second year. And she's still in the flat, which means that Victor's been camping out on Sherlock's floor sleeping on a blow-up air mattress, trying to figure out what the hell to do.

He won't be played by Chloe's proxy this way. "Alice, you cycle by here every day on your way from your room at college to the Sidgewick*, so don't make it into a big deal."

She frowns. "Yeah, well, you _used_ to be easy to find in the SPS Library at Sidgewick– you know, the place where all the land economy guys hang out?" Her tone is a little waspish.

"This is more convenient."

"Because you're hiding out with _him_ in Burrell's Fields."

"I like this library better."

"That's _weird._ No one likes this building."

The main Cambridge University library can provoke that kind of reaction; a lot of students don't like its brutal heavy style, calling it fascist. But Victor's interest in built places and their relationship with their surroundings makes him more appreciative. Sir Giles Gilbert Scott had designed the building, prompting critics of the time to argue that it looked more like another of his creations—the Battersea Power Station—than it did a place to house some of the most formidable collections of books in the country.

She takes his silence as some sort of consent. "You two really have to talk. You're _engaged_ for God's sake! It just seems, dunno… a bit petty, this. Holing up here in the library, not answering your phone, not coming back to the flat. Just kiss and make up, will you? She's driving me crazy, so angry that something so stupid has come between you two. She goes on and on about it like I wasn't there when it happened. A bit of ragging; that's all it was. It was just a joke, okay?"

"Not to him. It wasn't a joke to me, either." She is really getting on his nerves. "Go away, Alice. This isn't about you."

She puts her hands on her hips. "Yeah, I know. It's about you and my best friend. What I don't get is why you are willing to spend any time at all with that Holmes guy. He's the laughing stock of Trinity now, according to Sebbie."

That makes Victor angry enough to put his book down. "Were you the one taking pictures? Do you know who's been putting the posters up?"

She sighs. "Seb grabbed my SLR out of my hands before I knew what he was doing. Anyway, so what? The _pin-up boy_ isn't your problem; it's great publicity and our team is rolling in donations at the moment. Thanks to that poster, it looks like we will top the list of RAG contributions from Girton."

Photos of Sherlock with the tutu, face smeared with red kisses and a slash of lipstick across his own lips, hair doused in glitter, had been turned into a poster and copies put up on bulletin boards in colleges all over Cambridge. Yesterday, Victor had gone to nine college head porters and asked them to remove them, as the person depicted had not given his permission to be photographed. Fortunately, Sherlock never seems to go anywhere other than the lab and his rooms, so he shouldn't be aware of just how far and wide this thing had gone.

"Look, what I'm saying here is that you two need to kiss and make up. You know it's going to happen sooner or later, so just get on with it."

There is something in that assumption that Victor realises he can't and won't ever condone. Like a tectonic shift, something in him just _breaks._ "No. It's not going to happen like that. She's had three days to make up her mind and do the right thing."

"You know Chloe; she's not going to apologise."

He nods, "Yeah, actually I think I do finally know her for what she is. You tell her from me that she can just get her stuff out of my flat and head back to Girton. I'm done with this."

Alice looks shocked. "Done? What do you mean, _done_? You're breaking off your _engagement_?"

"Yes. She's being childish, jealous and cruel. It's a side of her that I've ignored long enough."

"You want me to be the bearer of that sort of news? Christ, she's going to kill me. You can't be serious; you've put nearly five years into that relationship! This guy shows up and everything's changed?"

"This isn't about Holmes. It's about Chloe. Our engagement is over. She can keep the ring, but I want her out of the flat by Friday."

"Wow." Alice just stands there, her eyes wide.

* * *

 **Author's Notes** :

*Light blue is the Cambridge university colour.  
** Sidgewick is one of the areas of the university where faculties have their main buildings.  
*** the events of Sherlock's injury are covered in my stories Musgrave Blaze and Defrag.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13 Protections**

* * *

"How do you explain this?"

Mycroft slides the poster across the well-polished wooden desk. He makes no effort to mask his disappointment and anger.

In front of him is Robert Dryden, the hapless employee of Research Associates. The man should have been ideally suited for surveillance work: average height, mousey brown hair cut neither too short, nor too long to attract attention. Once seen, instantly forgotten. The sort to blend into the background, to see but not to be seen.

Right now, he looks far removed from a trained professional. Over the smell of the old fashioned bees-wax furniture polish that the Diogenes Club uses, Mycroft can detect the faint whiff of the man's perspiration. He's stressed and the room's heating is doing him no favours. Dryden licks his lips in discomfort; there is a fine sheen of sweat on his brow.

"I was unaware of the incident until sometime later."

"And yet you were hired to provide both surveillance and protection for my brother. Where were you when this was happening?"

"Observing his movement on the laptop I keep at the flat." The reply is instantaneous; he's obviously made an effort to concoct a suitable story.

Mycroft makes a show of consulting his little black notebook. "That is at Number 34 Thompson Lane, is it not?"

When the idiot nods, Mycroft asks, "Why were you not shadowing his journey in person?"

"Because I knew where he was—at a performance at the West Road Concert Hall. There was no reason to suppose he was going to get into trouble. His movements are predictable; back and forth from his room to the chemistry department; it's been utterly predictable ever since he left that flat on Saxon Street, until this night. But I knew he'd made a purchase at the ticket office. I went and checked which performance it was for. When the phone tracer showed him there and walking back to his rooms at Burrell's Fields, I supposed he was okay."

Mycroft shifts his gaze to the poster, in all its gruesome detail. "How wrong you were."

Defensively, Dryden straightens his shoulders, revealing that the former military man is accepting the rebuke. "All I can say, sir, is that the Rag students were all over the streets that night; there was no reason to assume that he'd be one of their victims."

"Mister Dryden, it was not your job to suppose, or to assume _anything._ It was to protect my brother, which you singularly failed to do." Mycroft observes the forty-three-year old, former army intelligence officer is hearing the past tense in that statement and drawing the proper conclusion. Dryden shifts his weight in the chair. Someone less accustomed to looking for such signs might have missed this tell, but Mycroft never would. "Your failure is the reason why I have terminated my contract with Research Associates. The firm seems unable to maintain the standards of excellence that the late Philip Ranger was able to deliver."

"I'm sorry that you see it that way, sir."

"I have also told his successor, John Forton, that he would be wise to dismiss you."

Dryden's eyes widen slightly in shock. He's not expecting this.

Before he can protest, Mycroft delivers the blow. "I know that Sherlock identified you some time ago, and that he has been blackmailing you into keeping your distance. That you allowed such a thing to happen is stupidity; your failure to report it to your superiors is tantamount to gross negligence and professional misconduct."

"That's not…"

Mycroft interrupts, "Spare me any fairy tales you can concoct on such short notice. You've been having an affair with a woman who lives at…" he looks down at the notebook again "…Number Two, Harvey Goodwin Avenue: Mrs Gweneth Jenkins, a bored housewife who hired you last year to investigate her husband's infidelity. You haven't told her about the wife you have in Balham, South London. Nor about the three children whose school fees put you under such pressure that you moonlight by taking other domestic cases like these. It rather spoils the image of your proper employer, Research Associates, to be associated with this sordid work. As a result, I expect you will be receiving your P45 shortly*."

He looks up at the man, whose face now finally shows just how angry he is.

Dryden spits out, "Well, this just takes the biscuit. You get them to fire me, because your brother is a slimy toad, sneaking around my personal business. It wasn't blackmail; the kid didn't get me to pay anything; just told me I could have a cushy deal getting paid for surveillance without having to leave the flat. It was a nice little arrangement; he actually phoned me to say he was going to the concert, so when the tracer showed him doing just that, I could safely ignore him and what he's been getting up to with that rugby player. The only thing he's at risk of is pissing off people so much that they do something a little more harmful than just some Rag Week prank." He gestures at the poster. "The bloke's fiancée was behind this. She's not best amused that her meal ticket has just dumped her because of your queer brother – who got what he deserved. Hell hath no fury and all that."

The blatantly homophobic comment makes something deep inside Mycroft burn a little brighter; almost incandescent, in fact. But, none of it shows. In a voice that is as cool and calm as he can make it, he replies: "For that comment alone, I will see that you never work in the private investigation or security worlds again, Mister Dryden, and you may find it hard to find _any_ employer. Perhaps Mrs Jenkins will be willing to keep you on the proceeds of her divorce settlement. Or not, once she realises that you are not the man you have been pretending you are. _Hand over your phone_." Mycroft puts just enough of the command in the order that it will trigger the man's military training." He's going to need that phone to keep Sherlock unaware of the fact that he is no longer under surveillance by this idiot. "It's not your property, as you will recall. Nor is the laptop with the tracker application. It's being removed from your flat as we speak."

Scowling, Dryden fumbles in his jacket for the phone and then shoves it across the desk.

Mycroft presses a button on the red phone console on his desk . A moment later, there is a soft knock and then the door opens.

"Mister Dryden is just leaving, Wilder. See that he finds his way to the front door." He lets his sarcasm show; the idiot can't be trusted to follow any simple instructions if he allowed himself to be manipulated so easily by Sherlock. The man knows nothing of the real reasons why Sherlock needs protecting.

Mycroft's promotion two weeks ago has come just in time to help solve this dilemma. Given to whom Sherlock is related, there are now good reasons why he can get authorisation for his own men to keep the boy under proper surveillance rather than having to outsource this to a private firm. As the new Deputy Head of the Security & Intelligence Liaison Service, Mycroft's only known family member warrants close protection, given his increased importance in the UK security system. Not that he intends telling Sherlock that any time soon. First the blasted dog bite and now this. Sherlock is not keeping his head down and focusing on his studies. That rugby player has complicated matters, and Sherlock will need to be told to stop meddling in the boy's life, given what has just happened. Mycroft just hopes he can last until the Christmas break. Michelmas term ends on the 30th of November and the students will only be allowed to stay in their rooms for another week after that. Once he has Sherlock back at Parham, Mycroft will be able to make the boy see sense.

oOoOoOoOoOo

"Will you be going back home as soon as term ends next week?"

"Not if I can help it." If there is one thing Sherlock likes less than anything else at university, it is the fact that terms are so short.

"Don't you have to vacate your room by the fourth of December?"

Victor seems well aware of the impending turn-out of students that happens every year in early December. The colleges all run conferences and events over the break to earn money. Given that Lent term doesn't start until the third week of January, it means they want the six full weeks to maximise their income.

For Sherlock, the thought of having to pack up all his belongings and put the boxes into storage is almost as annoying as the idea of having some stranger residing in _his_ room for the duration. "Yes," he sighs, "unfortunately."

Having to leave Cambridge so soon makes his mood darken. Being forced to go back to Parham and twiddle his thumbs when he should be pushing ahead with the lab work is more than annoying. Mycroft has already told him that he will be closing up the London townhouse for the holidays, despite Sherlock's preferences. At least in London he'd have had access to libraries and he might have been able to cadge some lab time from one or two people he knows at UCL. If Dryden follows him back to London to continue wasting Mycroft's money babysitting him, then he'd have been able to get out of the house on his own and avoid the inevitable nagging sessions. He will be less able to circumvent his brother's surveillance systems at Parham; the staff have years of experience at keeping tabs on him. There is nowhere to go and nothing to do on the estate.

"Why is that unfortunate?" Victor enquires.

His curiosity is understandable; most students look forward to a reasonable break from studying. Sherlock has no wish to explain why he loathes Christmas, and abhors Parham. Too many ghosts are involved, and he doesn't want to sound even more pathetic than usual. So, he shrugs. "You've met my brother; why would I want to spend any time at all in his company?"

It's not just that he'd prefer to avoid the holidays; he'd prefer to stay at Cambridge because this term has been more interesting than he'd ever anticipated. Despite the injury, he's been able to focus on the chemistry more; this year Professor Blay has finally let him skip lectures so he could focus on the project. His attendance at weekly tutorials is pointless; they both know he is going to pass the exams at the end of the year with flying colours.

It's been a better year in other ways as well: after last year's freshman debacle, he's learned how to avoid the worst horrors of college life: the people, inanely boring classwork, the stupid extracurricular activities of students. That Rag Week thing last week was just one example of why he works hard to avoid interacting with his peers. The boys on his floor at Burrell's Fields kept putting up copies of the wretched photograph of his humiliation; for four days he couldn't come back to his room without having to rip yet another one off his door.

It has helped to have Victor staying with him. While sharing a room had felt slightly claustrophobic, it had been easier than Sherlock had anticipated. On the last day of his stay, Sherlock had come back from the coffee shop to see Victor standing at the far end of the corridor outside of Sebastian Wilkes' room, talking to him. The photos had stopped appearing after that, even though Victor had returned to his own flat and was no longer at Burrell's Fields to raise hell if more were found.

After the initial shock of the incident had worn off, Sherlock has been determined not to allow that stupid prank by the girls to spoil his mood; he's been happier this term than ever before, and a major reason is sitting next to him tonight in the chemistry lab.

He's come to enjoy the company of the big rugby player. Dangerously so, in fact, if he wants to avoid distraction. As incongruous as it seems, he seems to get on well with Victor, better than he has with anyone before. Slightly embarrassed by these realisations, Sherlock decides to focus his attention on the temperature monitor on the apparatus, even though it's mid-session and not likely to shift from the required 80 degrees C that he needs to express the proteins.

There is a silence, broken by the sound of Victor shifting his weight a bit on the rolling stool. It squeaks occasionally, which is not surprising. Most lab users are not his size. Sherlock had looked Victor up on the Cambridge University Rugby Team's website, and been astonished to learn that every one of the first eleven team players had their vital statistics listed. Victor is six foot five inches and weighs 253 and a half pounds. Although he's not been on a scales recently, Sherlock estimates that is nearly a hundred pounds more than he weighs, and Victor is four and three quarters inches taller. Sherlock had been confused by the precision of the figure on the CRFC website. Did they weigh their players every day? Was this part of the weird ritual of rugby at this level? He'd done everything in his power to avoid playing the sport at Harrow, but he'd been forced by Bradby's house master to spend one term doing it. He loathed all team sports back then, but at least it had given him enough of an education rugby to make sense now out of what it is that takes up so much of Victor's time.

Perhaps the size differential is the reason why Sherlock is so aware of his physical presence; he's _bigger_ than anyone he's ever been near before. It had made the four nights sharing the room a bit daunting, even though Victor had used an air mattress on the floor after the first night. Just being so close to anyone was a strange and intriguing novelty, and it had kept Sherlock slightly on edge.

Victor's chair squeaks again. "You could come stay at the flat… if you wanted to, that is."

For a split second, Sherlock's mind seizes that idea and runs amok with it: it's the answer to _everything_! Because Victor lives in a flat and not a dorm, there is no chance of his being turfed out of the place over the Christmas break; in fact, Sherlock could avoid the whole going home thing by staying up in Cambridge; this would also allow him to push his lab project forward by a full six weeks. And, if he was staying up, then maybe Victor would too, and that would be….

Then, reality crashes in and derails his wishful thinking. "Your fiancée would just _love_ that, I am sure."

"Um… that's not a problem anymore. In fact, if you want, you could move in this week. Chloe's gone. The downstairs bedroom is now empty of her stuff."

"Gone? Gone where? Has she already left for Norfolk? I assume that's where she's from; you mentioned you met her there."

For some reason, Victor clears his throat, and it confuses Sherlock. He had not sounded like he was coming down with a cold or anything.

"She's gone, as in no longer living in the flat. We broke up."

The runaway train of Sherlock's thoughts resumes full speed; with Chloe gone, there is no obstacle to his being at Saxon Street. It is hugely convenient to be so close to the lab, and the place is so much more comfortable than Burrell's Fields. He can avoid his brother entirely, and be able to spend more time with Victor, although he'll probably have to go back to his father's place in Norfolk at some point because that is what normal people with normal families do, but until then he'd have his undivided attention because Chloe isn't there…

Then, the brakes come on again. " _Broke up_? What does that mean?"

"Our engagement is over; I won't be seeing her again."

"Why?" Sherlock is confused. He has no idea why anyone would promise to get married, and he has an even flimsier grasp on why having once made that decision, it could be so quickly changed. Is this what people do these days?

Victor isn't looking at him, but rather down at the notebook in which he is recording a temperature. "Didn't work out."

Sherlock tries to interpret the nonchalance of Victor's answer. It makes no sense. "I don't understand. You said you'd had an argument, but why would that be something to stop you getting married? Married people argue all the time."

"Maybe it just wasn't meant to be. Just leave it, Sherlock; I don't really want to discuss it."

This must be one of those relationship things that he doesn't understand. He's never been able to decipher the social niceties of how people relate to one another, but he can hear the plea for privacy that is implicit in Victor's tone. Back to practicality, then. His brain reboots and he thinks about timing. "How long will you be staying up?"

"The Varsity Match is on Sunday, the 3rd. My father will be at Twickenham to watch, and the idea was that I'd go home with him from there."

"Oh." Sherlock wonders if his disappointment shows. "I'll have to leave then, too."

"No, of course not. You can stay the whole time, as long as you like. I can let you have a key. It's not a problem."

"Thank you; I'll take that offer. It will give me a chance to avoid my brother, which might make this the best Christmas ever."

Victor laughs. "Having met the guy, I can see your point. I wish I could do the same, take a bit of a break from family. I'm not looking forward to explaining to my dad what's happened."

"You think he won't be happy that you've broken the engagement? I would have thought he'd be glad that you've avoided the mistake of marrying the wrong person."

"You don't know my dad. He's Chloe's biggest fan, thinks she's got just what it takes to set me up for life."

Sherlock snorts. "Marriage isn't a life sentence anymore. My parents were unhappily married, and I've always wondered why they bothered to stay together for so long."

"Your brother said your mum died when you were little."

He nods, trying not to think of his mother. It always upsets him; the pain hits sharply and without warning and it takes a long time to shove it back under the floorboards of his Mind Palace. "My mother died too soon; I was only ten. My father died when I was fifteen, and I was utterly relieved to see the gravestone. I've never known two people less likely to get married to anyone, let alone each other. He was horribly ill-suited to be her husband. She was far too good for the likes of him."

Victor is smiling; he can see that much out of the corner of his eye.

A timer goes off, and both of them have to focus back on the work at hand. The results need to be sampled, labelled and then the gel strips moved into the lab freezer kept at minus 80 degrees C, where the proteins will wait until the next phase of the work can begin.

It's almost an hour later, when they've set the second run of the night off, that Victor resumes the conversation.

"My mum died when I was very young, too: only eighteen months. I don't remember her at all, just what little Dad's said about her. They got married in Australia before coming here. He told me she was an only child and her parents were dead, so no one could object to him stealing her away. He said it was a love match for him, not very practical as they were both poor. Her death must have been a big loss for him; he's never re-married and he won't really talk about her. I think that's why he wants so badly for me to find someone; he has an idealised view of it all. Chloe is from what he would think of as a suitable family. He cares about that sort of thing more than I do."

Victor has always seemed so, well, not to put too fine a point on it, _normal_ , that it surprises Sherlock to find that he, too, had grown up without a mother in his life. "Do you get on with your father?"

"Up until now, I have. But breaking up with Chloe may be the first time I've ever really disagreed with his advice. I'm not looking forward to telling him. I might end up coming back early, if he gets difficult about it."

Sherlock wonders if it is a bit not good to hope that Victor does return early.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

* A P45 is what a dismissed employee receives when they leave; it is sent to the UK tax authorities to indicate that neither the employee or the employer is liable for tax thereafter.

Readers may be confused by the "up" and "down" references regarding Oxbridge. At both universities, no matter what part of the country you might have come from, students go "up" to university, and they go "down" to home. If they are "sent down", that's rustication, AKA a suspension. Expulsion is rare, but does happen.

Mycroft's situation is complicated by the "other one"- AKA Fitzroy Sherrin Ford- a sibling who is covered in some of my stories in the ExFiles and in Periodic Tales, both of which were written before Series 3 and 4. In this universe, Eurus does not exist; there are no parents alive, and Mycroft is Lord Holmes, Viscount of Sherrinford. Sherlock's mother died when he was ten; his father when he was fifteen. Ford, who is a half-brother that Sherlock knows nothing about, has been behind at least two attempts on Sherlock's life. He is Mycroft's superior at the Security & Intelligence Liaison Service and was responsible for recruiting him to the service. Whew: that is the briefest summary possible from the over two million words that make up this universe I write in.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14 Penalty Try**

* * *

At ten minutes to three o'clock on the 3rd of December, Sherlock carefully tunes the radio he has brought to the lab. BBC Five Live is a station he's never listened to before today, because it's wall-to-wall live sports coverage—something that would normally bore him to tears. No team sport has ever interested him enough to care.

Until now.

The Varsity Match between Cambridge and Oxford is held every year at England's premier rugby football venue—Twickenham, just to the southwest of central London. This year is the 118th match between the two universities. According to the bookies, Cambridge is favoured to win, but the weather forecast is for windy, wet conditions and that makes it anybody's guess which team will slog through the mud to triumph.

In the past ten days, Sherlock has learned more about rugby than anyone other than a professional player would care to know, and he likes to think that he's been able to help Victor prepare for this defining moment of his rugby career. Together, they've rehearsed every scenario in the Light Blues' playbook and watched countless hours of video footage of Oxford's autumn season, trying to pinpoint the weaknesses of its players, their strategies and tactics. Now that they had the flat all to themselves it had become so much easier to spend time together.

"How can you not see that?" he had asked Victor last night.

" _What_?!"

"On every occasion that Adam Russell gets the ball, he hands off to the onside. He's an _American_ , for God's sake. What do they know about rugby?"

Victor had peered at the screen. "He's the Rhodes Scholar?"

Sherlock had rolled his eyes. "Yes, Victor. Hardly difficult to pick out from the others, since he's the stupid one with the pony tail."

"It's so helpful, you doing this. I appreciate it." Victor had made another notation on his opposition team member notes.

"Only fair since you've helped me in the lab. Because I can stay here over Christmas, I will be miles ahead. I can help you make sense of this now, in exchange – you'll be the captain who knows the most, and you'll be able out-think Oxford."

Victor had wondered out loud why such a thing would suddenly matter to Sherlock. Rather than tell him the truth—whatever mattered to Victor had begun to matter to Sherlock— he had muttered something about how Mycroft was always trying to argue that Oxford was better than Cambridge. "Serves him right if Oxford gets thrashed. Almost as glorious as watching their crew sink in the boat race."

Victor had asked him to come to Twickenham. "I can get concessionary tickets. My dad is coming."

"What do you know about me that tells you I would like to be in the middle of 50,000 screaming fans?" He hadn't told Victor that the idea of meeting his father is also something he'd find hard to stomach. From what Victor has told him about Trevor senior, the man sounds almost as meddling and domineering as Mycroft is, and Sherlock has an innate aversion to such people.

There is another reason he'd prefer not to be in the centre of the event. Only from a distance, alone in the familiar confines of the lab, will he be able to cope with what is happening on the Twickenham pitch. The fact that Victor has been playing rugby since he was eight years old won't protect him from getting hurt. He has come back from practice sessions with all kinds of bruises, scrapes and strained muscles. Most of the matches can be counted in small injuries that he laughs off as "wear and tear". Sherlock knows injuries happen to plenty of rugby players, but the thought still disturbs him. Harrow's house teams were certainly able to inflict damage; he remembers what it was like to be on the receiving end of tackles, to have a scrum collapse around him. In his year, a Bradby's boy on the Harrow First Eleven had been paralysed from a tackle that was illegal. Rules don't stop people from getting hurt, no matter how big and strong they are. All that physical perfection he sees in Victor can be so easily damaged. Perhaps he should worry more about being so preoccupied with Victor, but he can't help himself. The possibility that Victor might get hurt distresses Sherlock even more than the actual threat.

Victor had left two days ago, packing his things for the Christmas break. Apparently, the entire Light Blues team goes down early to spend some time practicing at Twickenham. They're in a hotel called the Alexander Pope, just opened.

In a rather awkward goodbye, Victor had wished him a happy Christmas. He'd replied that it would be, thanks to his generosity about the flat. "I won't wish you luck, because I don't believe in it. Given your proper preparation and your good leadership, the right side will win." Flustered and unable to stop himself from pouring his nervousness into a verbal overflow, he'd gone on to explain to Victor just who Pope was; he'd even remembered a suitable quote to explain why he liked the 18th century poet: _'Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon'_. It has always appealed to the scientist in him.

Right now, after two days without Victor, he's thinking more about another one of Pope's notable quotes: ' _Fools rush in where angels fear to tread'._ All he can do is hope that Victor emerges from the match unscathed and that the holidays won't keep them apart for long.

He's been keeping an eye on the time as he starts the process of another lab run, but nearly misses it because his attention had wandered. He turns the volume up to find that the match has already kicked off. Thank God he has missed all the boring pre-match chit-chat. One thing he has discovered over the past ten days is just how ignorant the vast majority of sports reporters are. One would think that, as this is their special interest and their career, they'd be able to put more intelligence into their commentary.

 _"The ref blows his whistle and Jeffries kicks short. Cambridge's Centre Williams takes it and moves quickly left. They've got the ball passing down the line but it's slow and they get stopped on their own 10m line. A high kick that doesn't find touch is well taken by Russell and Oxford has possession, moving some slow ball…. Stalled on the 35 meter line, Jenkins kicks but it sails straight out on the full! Poor start from him, nerves maybe? Cambridge throw in, 35m out from the Oxford line. Trevor takes it, and the forwards gather him into a rolling scrum. Looks impressive!"_

Sherlock listens while testing the _E coli_ solution and is gratified to see that it is in exactly the right concentration he needs.

 _"Simmons is penalised for holding on, ending a good period for Cambridge, they held the ball well and made a little headway. More importantly, they forced an Oxford line-out mistake, an area of the game where they could cause problems."_

Sherlock's hand, holding a pipette, halts.

 _"But wait; the first Cambridge line out throw is no better…too deep! Right over the head of their captain. Oxford's Simmons capitalises on the mistake and comes away with it, over halfway before he's taken down in a vicious tackle by Hardwick. He just manages to offload it quickly to the right to Peters and then back left, where Sheppard makes headway, before being brought down 10m inside the Cambridge half…."_

As the commentator takes a breath, Sherlock starts filling the next array with the _E. coli_ mix, manipulating the pipette rapidly to inject just the right amount into the tubes. He's on his fourth run of the afternoon and would like to finish it before halftime. That would allow him to process and freeze the results before starting another run. He will have twenty minutes between halves, so can concentrate without distraction.

 _"The Dark Blues are keeping the ball in hand but not making a lot of headway against a robust Light Blues defence. Loose pass from Jenkins is intercepted! Malone makes good ground back over halfway. Big hit by Smith on Trevor but the Cambridge defence are resisting well. The ref blows for a scrum."_

With one ear on the commentary and another on the ticking of the stopwatch he is using to manage the run, Sherlock multitasks for the next fifteen minutes.

The first try is straight out of the CURFUC playbook, just as Sherlock had rehearsed with Victor. It's a dummy scissors, and Oxford's defence is left flat-footed as the Cambridge right winger ducks and dives around three defenders before touching down behind the goal line. He finds it hard to suppress his smile as he imagines just where Victor would have been in on the moves, blocking, tackling and clearing the way. The conversion kick is good and it's 7-nil to the light blues, nineteen minutes into the first half.

Then the restart distracts him momentarily: _"Good high kick, but the wind has taken it nowhere; Oxford wins the loose ball near halfway. They move it quickly right and again look semi-dangerous as Timpson barges it up midfield. Now they swing it left; there's no shortage of ambition from the Dark Blues and they're looking pretty handy."_

Sherlock tries to compel himself to focus on his work again. He knows that there is nothing he can do to change the course of the match, and he needs to pay attention to what he is doing, or risk screwing up the run. He does manage to tune out momentarily to start the next heat stage of the experiment, but when he has just set the temperature gauge at the right setting, things on the field start to go wrong for Cambridge and he can't ignore the radio any longer.

 _"Oxford wins the line-out and the Aussie Bret Robinson sends a real bomb down mid-field. Bad bounce! Not well handled and Cambridge lose possession. Oxford re-gather and win a penalty for offside. Too far from goal, they kick for touch and will throw to an attacking line-out, 15 meters from the Cambridge line. Thorn wins a loose tap from the line-out and Robinson makes good ground. They make 10 meters before he's is pushed out in a blindside attack. A second penalty against Cambridge though, again for offside…. Russell steps up from 26m out and close to his left touch. It's a tricky shot but conditions are nice and still."_

The stadium goes quiet for the penalty kick, which unfortunately slots between the goal posts, bringing the score to 7-3.

Sherlock sniffs. It's annoying that Victor is being let down by sloppy play by his team mates. Offside penalties are not _that_ hard to avoid. Too much adrenaline and not enough logic.

Driving rain sets in over Twickenham and progress on the field slows down to a war of attrition. Two penalties later, one each for the two sides, the score has moved onto 10-6, and then the ref blows his whistle for half time.

Sherlock sets the alarm clock. He has precisely twenty minutes to process the results of the fourth run and get them into the freezer downstairs.

oOoOoOoOo

It's not the first time Victor has played at Twickenham. He had been on the substitute bench last year but got to play when the lock forward had been bloodied. His pitch time only lasted ten minutes, but it had felt glorious.

At half time, the coach is upbeat but his anxieties are showing. He bawls out the two players whose mistakes had led to penalties: "It's too bloody close! You have to get out there and give them hell! Once you cross that white line onto the pitch, you are at _war_!"

Victor doesn't let his feelings about this show. Of _course_ , he wants to win; as captain, the last thing he wants is to let his teammates down. Whatever else happens in the rest of the season, the Cambridge University rugby supporters tend to judge a season's success by whether they win the Varsity Match.

And, there is more than just how the match is going that is nagging away at Victor: tonight's celebration dinner extravaganza, including the ritual candlelight greeting on Castle Hill that the team will get back in Cambridge. It will happen regardless of whether they win or lose, and such pomp and circumstance is yet another thing that Victor has been feeling increasingly alienated from this term. Instead of being something to look forward to, now it all just seems a bit over the top.

Once they are back on the pitch, the wind, rain and mud conspire to limit the choices; in these conditions that playbook he's spent so much time with suddenly seems too remote and unrealistic. Line-outs are unpredictable, and keep going against the team throwing in. Slippery numb fingers fumble the ball; passes are missed, players slide and fall. The whole rhythm of the game feels off; it's more a case of survival than of flair and pride. At least one thing works as predicted: every time Oxford's Adam Russell gets the ball, he hands off to the on-side, and it makes Victor smile to remember Sherlock's analysis.

Penalties start mounting up as the players become increasingly tired and dispirited. Everyone seems mired in mid-field, too far from goal to make a kick possible. On the few chances that come Cambridge's way, the scrum half's kicks to goal are screwed by the swirling winds that are driving from the Oxford end. Fifteen minutes of play and the score has not moved on from 10-6. _Not enough,_ Victor thinks.

Even the crowds in the stands seem muted, huddled down in their thick jackets. In frustration, Victor puts together a series of drives, straight out of his last session of work with Sherlock; eight phases later, the ball is down on the Oxford ten-meter line. From here, it's their first real shot at a goal. A try at this stage will give them some contingency, and Oxford will need more than a try of their own to beat them. Victor calls out encouragement to his team as the scrum assembles, his breath vaporising in the cold. He settles into the second row, digging his cleats into the mud to get some purchase, taking some comfort in the strong weight of the back row behind him.

When the hooker gets the ball to the fly-half, he steps back to give himself enough room to get the goal kick away, but the scrum starts to slip in the mud to the left and breaks up when they are only five meters out. Oxford players surge through and tackle just about anything that is moving. Victor manages to shake one player off and steps back behind the fly-half, signalling for a pass. Better to run with the ball than to try a drop goal in the mud.

The scrum half passes the ball just in time as he gets tackled. The ball wobbles, but Victor snags it and passes it along the line of his own backs. He's moving forward now, but turned away to see how they are faring, and doesn't see the late tackle coming.

He is brutally smashed backwards, his face taking the brunt of an elbow ploughing him at speed. The pair go down, his left shoulder taking the full weight of a heavily-built Oxford player.

Later, his father will tell him that Adam Russell's tackle was illegal; too high and dangerous play. The man responsible is sent to the sin bin for ten minutes and a penalty try is awarded by the ref. Victor registers very little of this; all he can focus on is the pain as the on-field medics start dealing with his injuries.

Three long minutes later, he is on his feet and being led off slowly. His nose is streaming with blood, and a cut above his right eye is bleeding profusely, making his vision a red blur. His shoulder is ablaze with pain that is making him nauseous and feels horribly wrong _._

He doesn't get to see the end of the match; he's taken to West Middlesex University Hospital's A&E to get his dislocated right shoulder re-set into its socket and stitches over his right eye. An ENT specialist examines the damage to the bone and cartilage of his nose.

His dad shows up about a half hour later, his thick-set, burly form filling up the tiny curtained cubical where Victor has been examined. The junior doctor who is now packing Victor's nostrils with strips of absorbent antimicrobial dressing seems a little intimidated by his larger-than-life dad.

Jack Trevor takes one look at his son and mutters, "What a wasted opportunity."

Maybe it's his shock of grizzled hair, or his fierce blue eyes set in a face tanned from working in the Norfolk fens that unsettles the nurse. "Excuse me, sir; are you talking to me?"

"No, miss; I'm talking to my son, if you don't mind."

She finishes quickly and retreats, pulling the curtain closed as she leaves.

"What happened after I left?" Victor needs to know.

His father's face tells him that Cambridge had lost the match, even before he goes onto give the details. "The Oxford team managed to block the conversion kick, and then run back the re-start kick into a position on the Cambridge twenty-two meter line. From there, they pushed your defence again and again, eventually breaking through to score a try. Their kick didn't miss, unlike that useless idiot on your team. The score at the whistle was 15-13 to Oxford."

Victor sighs. "How bad was the run of play?"

Jack Trevor continues; "Your place was taken by that scrum half, James Sonderby. What a fucking idiot to designate as vice-captain! It's his fault that Cambridge lost. He decided to try to run the ball at the last minute instead of a drop goal attempt. Bloody idiot! The ref caught him in a ruck refusing to release the ball. School boy error and the penalty kick put the ball back down the field. You wouldn't have done that. They ran it in easily. The Cambridge defence really needed you there. You'd have told that wretched fly half to kick at goal and the three points would have clinched the win."

"Gee—thanks, Dad, for rubbing it in."

That's when he asks the question that Victor has been dreading. "Where the hell is Chloe? Her seat next to me was empty the whole match. She should be here, consoling you. If you have to miss the dinner tonight, at least she'll be company."

As if she'd skip such a dinner even if Victor was indisposed. Perfect opportunity to flaunt a new designer dress. One invariably paid for by Victor.

"She changed her mind; couldn't come. Some…family thing." Victor hates the lie, but he is feeling so down at the moment that he can't face having this conversation now, in an A&E cubicle of all places.

"Of all the rotten timing; well, still… Family must come first." The older Trevor looks at his watch. "Have they told you when you'll be released?"

"No, but I expect I will miss the dinner. And to be honest, I don't feel well enough to put up with it."

His father looks at him closely. "Any concussion?"

"They're looking at that. Might have to do an x-ray or something." He wants to get rid of the man; any scrutiny at this point is just too much for him to handle. "Go onto the dinner without me. When they release me, I will take a taxi back to the hotel and to bed." He really doesn't want to face his teammates right now – doesn't want to face _anyone_.

"Doesn't seem right, leaving you here."

Victor's patience is at an end. "Go on. You know how important a networking opportunity this is. Go and press the flesh. If I can't be there, you need to represent us."

Jack Trevor frowns, but nods. "Okay, if you're sure you'll be alright."

"Go."

oOoOoOoOo

When Sherlock has to leave the lab at eight in the evening, he's furious. Not only did he ruin the assay that was underway after half time in the Varsity Match, he was also delayed in getting the results of the previous one into the freezer in time, which might compromise the next phase for the entire batch.

He'd been glued to the radio, waiting to hear news—any update at all—on what had happened to Victor. When the announcer had explained that the Cambridge University lock forward had left the field to seek medical attention, no further word had been given. The assumption seemed to be that as long as he had walked off under his own steam, nothing too serious had happened. So, the idiot announcer's attention had shifted singularly to the game once it had re-started. At every break in play, Sherlock had leaned in to hear if there was any further comment, to no avail. Not only is he being kept in the dark about what has happened to Victor, but the Light Blues seem to be rudderless, almost determined to add insult to injury.

Ten minutes after the injury, Oxford's Russell returns to the field from the sin bin. The designated vice-captain of the Cambridge side has been utterly unable to take advantage of the one man edge they had, and Sherlock almost groans in frustration. Victor and he had mentally rehearsed quite a few scenarios based on that advantage and the idiot had obviously not come up with a single one of them.

Sherlock had tried to do another run, but completely missed the moment when he was supposed to increase the temperature to 80 degrees, and so failed to get the heat shock he needs. In frustration, he abandoned the run and spent the rest of the match just cleaning up and preparing for tomorrow's work.

The post-match commentary had been excruciatingly boring, but he'd endured it in the hope that someone would tell him what has happened to Victor. All they wanted to do is mouth platitudes about how the team had missed his steering at their moment of greatest need. The substitute lock forward who had been brought in had proved useless, totally over-awed at the Twickenham crowd.

Finally, one of the announcers had said that Victor has been taken to the nearest hospital for "a shoulder injury and what looked like a broken nose," but that it "wasn't serious."

Sherlock takes a deep breath and looks around the lab one last time. Given that the classes had ended a week ago, the chemistry department buildings now close at eight and Professor Blay had been clear—no infringements would be tolerated. It is annoying that even though he is able to stay at the flat for the whole break, the lab will be closed down completely from Christmas Eve until New Year's Day. " _It's the Christmas break, Holmes. The staff deserve time off,_ " Blay had emphasised.

As Sherlock leaves the lab, the security guard is scowling. "First in, last out. Don't you ever give it a rest?"

He doesn't answer; not in the mood for conversation. Fortunately, because term is over, the walk back to the flat is empty of pedestrians. No other students had been in the lab, not even the post-grads who didn't have to abide by the term schedules, as long as they had their own private accommodation.

Sherlock is nearly to the door of the flat on Saxon Street when someone steps out from the alley that runs alongside the building.

No, not a someone, but _three_ people. It's dark and there are no streetlights, so it's hard to make out who they are, but there is something in the stance they take between him and the front door that makes him feel threatened. A glance behind him shows him two more figures in the dark, about twenty feet behind him. He had not heard them following him, and that worries him. Perhaps he'd been so deep in thought about Victor that he hadn't been paying as much attention as he usually does to his surroundings.

As he calls out, "Who are you?" he starts thinking about the odds of five to one.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fifteen: Payback**

* * *

Sherlock's question is answered by laughter both from behind and in front of him. The sound is enough to tell him that his adversaries are male, and from what he can see in the dark, they are tall and at least the three in front of him are dressed in dark colours.

He is calculating whether he could make a run for it when one of the figures in front of him moves into the centre of the cobbled road.

"Let's just say that we're the payback team."

With his lower leg still encased in the walking boot, Sherlock abandons the idea of trying to run. He's going to have to think his way out of this situation, so he reaches for his phone in his pocket; it's on, because he wants Dryden to know that he's left the lab and is nearly home. While the men start to close in on him, he hits re-dial, keeping the phone hidden so that his assailants can't see that it's on.

"What am I supposed to have done that deserves punishment?" He keeps his voice calm, stifling the anxiety that is trying to creep into his bloodstream. He hopes that the microphone will be able to pick up on the voices even though it's in his pocket.

For the first time, he realises that allowing Dryden to monitor him from the comfort of his flat is going to be a costly decision; the man will not be able to get here in time to change the outcome of this confrontation.

Just in case that this is just another mugging of a university student and their cryptic statement hadn't been personal or a case of mistaken identity, he offers: "If you want my wallet, I won't fight you for it."

That is greeted by more laughter, until one of them yells, "Fifteen – Thirteen."

The two men behind Sherlock are now less than four meters away. "That's the final score, _Freak_. It's your fault that Trevor wasn't on the field to stop us from losing," one of them adds in.

 _Us?_ They must be rugby players, then? The deduction confuses Sherlock. "Who are you? The Varsity match team must still be down in Twickenham. I wasn't at the match – I didn't have anything to do with his getting injured."

There is more laughter until the man closest to him in the front addresses him: "Just think of us as concerned citizens – disappointed fans upset that our side just lost, because of _you_. The captain had his eye off the ball; his mind hasn't been on the game for some time, now. Because of you, he kept missing practices that he should have attended. Because of _you_ , he didn't spend the time he needed with the rest of the team, building up rapport, getting them psyched up for the big match. So, it's only fair that you get thrashed the way Oxford did to us on the field."

As if the signal has been silently given, the three in front and the two behind all charge at him. Sherlock tries to sidestep the first man who has reached him and is attempting a classic shoulder tackle. Kicking at the arms of another man who is trying to grab his legs, Sherlock wriggles free of their grasp, leaving only his jacket in the assailant's hands. Unfortunately, the time spent slithering out of the garment and the effect of his bad leg are just enough to slow him down so that the second one into the fray can grab him by the waist. Sherlock knees the man in the groin, which is greeted by an explosion of breath and a curse. It's enough to give him a second to shove away the arms that are threatening to envelope him. But, putting all of his weight onto his damaged leg just as the guy who has grabbed him is leaning heavily against him makes the injured limb crumple out from underneath him. He cries out in pain, going down on one knee.

One of the men who had been standing by comes at him from behind. This one puts his arms around Sherlock's hips and lifts him right off the ground, upending him completely. His feet go up in the air, just as his shoulders are snagged by the two in front, who pull his head down, smashing him face-first into the cobblestones.

There's an exploding pain in his head, but it soon stops as he loses consciousness.

oOoOoOoOo

Once the blood has been cleaned away from the face of the new trauma patient, Doctor Kate Summers has a distinct sense of déjà vu: "I've seen this boy before," she comments to the Trauma Team's Anaesthesia Nurse while the EMTs and the rest of the trauma team are transferring the patient from the ambulance trolley onto an A&E one and switching up the monitoring.

It's past ten in the evening, and she's been on duty since eight in the morning. She was supposed to go home at six, but a colleague called in sick, so she agreed to take the twilight shift. They are so stretched in terms of staffing, and she is feeling so not guilty at being the lucky one to have Christmas Day off for the first time in three years.

The A&E has been busy— most university students may have travelled home for Christmas, but that doesn't stop a steady stream of cases from keeping her team on their toes. A three car pile-up on the A14 at three had brought in five casualties: just a few minor fractures on three of the five, but more serious injuries for the other two. At least all of them had been alive when transferred out of the Accidents & Emergencies Department to the OR and the ITU.

At five thirty, a battered child had felt like one drama too many for her shift; the poor mite had been caught between a warring couple and ended up with a concussion. Older bruises had been found; police and social services involvement followed with the accompanying retinue of paperwork.

It is no wonder that Kate is counting the minutes until she can go home, but it is becoming obvious that there will be no respite until her shift ends at midnight. This current case has just been wheeled in just as she had been planning to find herself some freshly brewed coffee.

Kate listens to the report from the EMTs and the EM physician who'd been called to the site after it was established that the patient was unconscious and badly injured. The ambulance had been called to the scene by someone living at Fitzwilliam Court on Saxon Street. On his way from the car park behind the flats he'd stumbled across a young man lying in the alley way between his block and number five. According to the EMTs on scene, the neighbour had not recognised him. There was no wallet on him, so he's a John Doe likely to have been beaten and robbed, until he wakes up.

Facial lacerations and bruising pointed to assault, and he was unconscious; the Glasgow Coma Scale was seven, which meant his airway had been secured with intubation on site after an IV was started to administer the required medication. The patient was lucky in the fact that this December night had been wet and windy, but not bitterly cold. His clothes had been soaked and his body temperature had already sunk low. Not good news for a trauma patient, since hypothermia was usually listed as one key feature of the so-called lethal triad of trauma. Once intubated, there were no worrying issues regarding ventilation, but his blood pressure and pulse were a little on the low side, to which the intubation medications had probably contributed.

The silver foil blanket from the ambulance is still there, re-wrapped around him after the wet and bloody clothing has been removed. They've swapped the cold bag of Hartmann's solution started in the ambulance for a warm version. At a glance, vital signs apart from level of consciousness are looking more encouraging.

She starts going through the ABCDE protocol in her head as she examines the young man. Airway secured; the anaesthetist on call is adjusting the settings on the portable respirator next to the bed. Breathing: pulse ox reading normal, the expiratory carbon dioxide reading a satisfactory 4.8 and Kate makes a plan to promptly take an arterial blood gas sample to see how well that matches the results from her blood. She reminds the rest of the team that the head of the bed should be raised to lower a potentially high intracranial pressure – the patient may well have an acute traumatic brain injury.

Her tired brain moves onto the C for Circulation: the anaesthetist has started a low rate infusion of noradrenaline, which has raised the patient's mean arterial pressure to a satisfactory 75. No obvious bleed to attend to promptly, thank God. Pulse is normal, not tachycardic – this might be the medications, but if he was bleeding profusely this could have elevated the pulse at this point unless close to exsanguination.

Next it's D: disability. The GCS had been low on site, and the patient has been receiving boluses of sodium pentothal along the way. Pupils are reactive to light, in midline, normally sized. A nice-sized bump on the back of his head to complement the facial damage: The dark curling hair is matted with blood. The boy's right eye is swollen shut and purple. The other eye has an equally angry looking shiner, but at least the eye doesn't seem too swollen. There are superficial cuts and bruises all over his face. One of his cheekbones is clearly broken, and she suspects the nose is, too. They'll need a trauma CT once the anaesthetist stops faffing about inserting an arterial line. At least that'll give them the arterial blood gas sample Kate needs. Tox screen, standard trauma lab package. Nasogastric tube and a urinary catheter will also be needed, but they can do that after the CT.

Although the young mugging victim looks familiar, it isn't surprising that she can't come up with a name; they see so many patients that they all seem to blur together. Even if she concentrates hard to try to imagine what his face had looked like before the damage inflicted tonight, the spinal board and neck brace are obstructing some of her view. Her exhausted brain is only telling her that she should recognise the patient, even if she can't come up with a name.

They remove the space blanket so that they can log roll the patient, allowing Kate to finish her survey of his injuries. There is something about the fact that the patient is wearing a walking boot on his left leg that definitely rings a bell.

Kate does a final, quick run-through of ABC: ventilatory parameters stable, as is circulation. Now, the limelight is given to the radiology department. While waiting for the CT room to become available, they get a quick chest X-ray done in the acute bay, showing a few broken ribs but no signs of pneumo- or hemothorax. While Kate had been doing her initial survey, a radiologist had already done a FAST. The cursory ultrasound assessment of the patient's abdominal cavity and pleural spaces hadn't revealed anything very troubling, and the CT will rule out what ultrasound can't.

When they're done, she accompanies the patient back down to the A&E. The trauma CT – including the head, the spine, the long bones, the chest and the abdominal cavity – shows no skull fracture, no intracranial bleeding and no obvious signs of a significant brain contusion. The facial bone findings fit Kate's initial assessment. That's the E of the protocol done. _He's lucky._

It's when Sammy, the A&E security man ambles down the corridor towards Resus that the penny drops regarding the patient's identity, and the name pops into her head: _Holmes_. The boy who had done a runner back in October, after a vicious dog bite ripped his Achilles tendon in two. Yes… it's coming back to her now. A John Doe on that occasion, too. Sammy had trusted him to go to the loo on his own, and he'd scarpered. They'd caught up with him in the car park, and he'd resisted treatment. There was a brother involved, she thinks.

Doctor Summers heads to the senior nursing station, as the porter wheels the trolley into a cubicle. "Pull the records on a Holmes, uni student admitted in mid-October I think for a dog bite and Achilles tendon damage. There will be an emergency contact number on it."

oOoOoOoOo

Several hours later, Mycroft is also having a moment of déjà vu. This time, the hapless person being interviewed is not a hired private detective, but rather one of his own men and he isn't at Diogenes Club this time, but the familiarity of the scenario is still distressing.

It's one o'clock in the morning and Mycroft had to leave an embassy dinner in order to get to Cambridge's Addenbrook's Hospital. He's now outside in the parking lot; the S&ILS agent he'd assigned to watch his brother is sitting beside him in the black car, trying to explain the inexplicable.

"Sir, I tracked his phone from the lab to his front door on Saxon Street. The trace didn't move from there, so I assumed he'd done what he's done on the other nights I've been watching: eaten something and gone to bed. When I walked up the street at eight thirty, the lights in the flat were out, so I assumed he'd gone to bed."

Berisford is an experienced man, if a bit young. Perhaps he had thought the assignment beneath him and had not given it the due diligence it deserved. Mycroft had heard rumbles among the staff that babysitting duties were really not something they thought they should be doing. In any case, it is the last assignment that the man will ever perform in the service, and none of the other branches will have him either, once Mycroft's report on the incident is attached to his personnel record.

Wearily, Mycroft repeats words he had only uttered ten days before: "You _assumed._ When in fact, your surveillance subject was lying in the alley next to the flat, injured."

Remarkably, the agent dares to interrupt. "The tracer equipment is not that accurate, sir. It can only register the presence of his phone to within a radius of fifty feet. It was not possible to know that he was not in the flat."

"You could have had eyes on him. Your _own_ eyes, instead of relying on the equipment, given its limitations which you must have been well aware of prior to this incident."

"Sir, if you recall, your instructions were to ensure that he did not spot me, that he was not to know that I had replaced the previous watcher."

Mycroft has no patience left. "I don't need reminding of my own words, Mister Berisford. It is my fault for assuming that your skill set was up to the job of shadowing him in person without being seen."

The man takes a breath and then tries to defend himself. "Saxon Street is a hundred and twenty meters long, straight as a die, with no street lighting and no convenient cover. It's cobbled and very narrow, so the noise of footsteps is amplified by the facades of the buildings, whose doors open almost directly onto the street. It would have been very hard to follow him in the dark without being seen to be sure that he actually made it the last ten feet to the front door."

"Very… hard." Mycroft lets his disappointment show. The man is pathetic and he needs to know it. "I suppose you have an equally paltry excuse as to why the phone call your target made was not received and acted upon?" Mycroft had given Berisford Dryden's phone, so any attempt to leave a message regarding his whereabouts could be received without revealing that Sherlock's deal with his shadow was no longer in operation.

"The battery died, sir; a charger malfunction."

"Or more likely, a malfunction on your part, to keep it adequately charged." The missed call had been identified when Sherlock's own phone had been recovered from his effects at the hospital. "You should consider yourself fortunate that my brother's injuries, while significant, are not currently life threatening."

Berisford has the temerity to ask, "How is he, sir?"

"The doctors tell me that he is lucky to have escaped with a broken nose and a right orbital socket hairline crack. No fracture to his skull, although he does have a nasty concussion. A few cracked ribs without lung complications. His damaged Achilles tendon is inflamed, likely from being used too much, and he is still recovering from mild hypothermia, brought on by lying out in the cold and wet street, due to your incompetence."

"Have you any idea who was responsible, sir?"

Mycroft loses it, finally. "YOU, _you imbecile!_ If you had been following orders, whoever attacked him would have been seen and stopped, assuming you were even half-way competent at your job. Unfortunately, I have assumed too much of you, and my brother has paid the price. Get out of this car now, and out of my sight. Someone in personnel will be in touch with you about the severance arrangements."

As Berisford leaves the car, Mycroft sighs at the medical reports in his lap. Thanks to the ineptitude of his own employee, he is no closer to knowing who and why Sherlock was assaulted. Could his brother have been robbed and beaten up when trying to purchase drugs? The initial tox screen taken by the Emergency Department had been clear, but all that means is that he could have been assaulted before the transaction was completed.

Mycroft had asked the hospital to send a hair sample to a private clinic in London. It would take a while, but the test should show whether there was a longer term problem. It was always a possibility that Sherlock would relapse. Why else would he be in a dark alley? A quick look at the boy's finances show no sign of a recent withdrawal the size that would be needed to make a purchase. Of course, his brother would want to hide his relapse, so perhaps he'd been willing to resort to an exchange of sexual favours for drugs. It wouldn't be the first time. The thought is profoundly depressing.*

How fortunate it is that Doctor Kate Summers had recognised Sherlock from the earlier admission. What would have happened if another consultant had been on duty this time? Chances are that Berisford would not have realised his mistake until the next morning. Sherlock would have been treated as just another John Doe, and who knows how many days might have passed before the truth had been discovered? And with someone else, the whole charade of him having to explain his power of medical attorney would have had to be re-run.

 _Small mercies._ Mycroft can be thankful for them. And also for the fact that the first round of scans and tests seem to show no serious difficulties or complications. Doctor Summers has explained that although the primary CT hasn't shown an acute brain injury, they have to play it safe. The facial injuries are worrying; there could be airway swelling, so they'll keep Sherlock on a ventilator in ITU and extubate in the morning. If that goes well, then Sherlock might be moved to a general ward for observation later that day, assuming the brain MRI tomorrow shows no damage. If he shows improvement without any further complications, he might be discharged tomorrow evening.

That gives Mycroft the best part of eighteen hours to find answers to the question that has been worrying him constantly. Who or why would anyone have attacked Sherlock so viciously? Was it about drugs? If not, could it be linked to his earlier humiliation? Not for the first time when it comes to Sherlock, Mycroft is annoyed that he has no answers, just more questions.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

*For the back story to Sherlock's time on the streets, his drug abuse and how Mycroft got him into rehabilitation, you need to read the stories in the Periodic Tales series: Holmium and Berkelium, as well as Extort in ExFiles. And Got My Eye On You's Beginnings is how Lestrade comes across Sherlock and drugs, at the tender age of seventeen. Of course, Sherlock started even earlier when it came to drugs. See Periodic Tales, Carbon. There are also two stories on ExFiles: Execute and Expunge, which cover other occasions when Sherlock collided with drugs in childhood.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16 Avoiding Conversations**

* * *

When his father turns up at the hotel at eight in the morning, Victor is more than ready to leave. He's had no contact with any of the rest of the Blues team; none of them would have been likely to want an early breakfast, given their commiseration dinner last night. It is a tradition—win or lose— that after the formal dinner, the team retires to the bar and keeps it open until the last man throws in the towel. Everyone knows that even the coaching staff will turn a blind eye. There are no more matches until after Christmas, which means that the boys have had a tradition to uphold: getting so rat-arsed drunk that most of them wouldn't make it upstairs to their bedrooms. They'd simply pass out and sleep in the bar.

A year ago, Victor had been a substitute who made it onto the pitch, so had been invited along to the piss-up. By the time he'd retreated upstairs, he reasoned that no one would be checking beds that night, so he'd gone down the corridor to where he knew Chloe had her room and crawled into her double bed. They'd missed breakfast, but no one had cared as long as he'd made the team coach departure time.

This year was entirely different. By the time he'd got away from the hospital, the dinner was nearly finished. He'd gone straight to his room and slept through the night with the help of the painkillers provided by the hospital. When he'd woken up to his alarm going off, a quick look over at the other twin bed showed him that his roommate for the trip had never made it back upstairs.

He'd crawled out of bed feeling like a ten-tonne truck had hit him. Everything hurt; every muscle seemed to be half the length it should be; he could hardly stand up. Looking in the bathroom mirror had been downright scary. His nose had a piece of adhesive across the bridge that was more decoration than anything else. He had two enormous shiners; looked like a panda with purple markings rather than black. There was no way he could shave when even touching his face with his fingertips hurt. He had enough time to grab a sheet of hotel stationery out of the folder on the desk, so he wrote an apology to the coach, explaining that he was going directly home and wouldn't be on the team coach back to Cambridge. He gave it to the reception desk to pass on when the rest of the team checked out.

"Alright?" His father's greeting is cheery and matter-of-fact. He's seen enough of Victor's rugby related injuries over the years not to be worried by this latest iteration.

Victor musters a grunted "fine." Even though he is doped up on a fresh dose of the heavy-duty pain medication, getting in the front passenger seat is agony on his shoulder. The seat belt is in an impossible position, putting pressure on a joint that can't take any more, so he's forced to ask his Dad to sort it out for him. This turns out to have been pointless, because even before they reach Junction 12 of the M25, he's had to ask his dad to pull over to the side of the road and let him get in the back. Once he's lying down on the backseat with his knees bent and the back of his head pillowed on his sweater, the pain finally eases a bit. He chews another two paracetamol into bits, uses his water bottle to wash the bitter particles down and closes his eyes.

The drive back to Norwich feels agonisingly slow. The M25 anti-clockwise crawls, jammed up by winter travellers, commuters and Christmas shoppers. Once they're past the turning for the M27 to Gatwick Airport, things ease a bit, enough to make his dad decide to stop at the Clackett Lane Service area. When Victor crawls off the back seat, he wonders if he will be able to walk to the loos without passing out or throwing up. Thanks to the meds, his head feels like it's filled with cotton wool, he's nauseous – he always got carsick as a child and lying down is making everything worse. Just getting himself out of the car makes him feel momentarily faint.

For almost the first time, his father shows some concern about his physical state. "You okay?"

He grunts. "I'm alive. And I have a hard head."

"Did you manage anything for breakfast?"

He starts to shake his head, regrets it, and then mutters, "No."

His dad rubs his gloved hands together to stave off the cold. "Right. You stagger off to the loo, and I'll get us something to eat. I'll get us a table."

Victor doesn't have the strength to argue.

It doesn't take him long in the gents' – something he is grateful for, given the number of looks that he's being given. When he's washing his hands, Victor glances up at the mirror and realises the reason for the staring: his face is even more spectacularly bruised and swollen now than it was a couple of hours ago. He hopes that his father has gotten take-away food; he's not sure he wants to be stared at by the other restaurant patrons.

When he finds his father at the table, Victor nearly groans at the sight. Two full English breakfasts: two fried eggs, bacon, sausage, baked beans, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms, as well as a rack of toast. Gingerly, he lowers himself onto the chair, and grimaces. "Don't know if I can manage all that." He pops the blister pack of ibuprofen that the hospital had given him last night, and takes two with his first sip of coffee.

"Nonsense, Vic. Just what you need to set yourself up. You must be hungry, missing last night's dinner."

Wearily, Victor picks up his fork; he's too damned sore to want to argue. His dad's got on his 'g'day' tone of voice, a more blatantly Australian accent than usual. It's something that he's come to realise gets trotted out whenever his father is trying to jolly him into something he doesn't really want to do.

He's pushing his fork around the plate, trying to work up the interest and energy to consume more than a mouthful when his dad starts talking again.

"It was roast beef and all the fixings last night. Lovely claret — they really know how to push the boat out for you guys. Shame you had to miss it; you'd have liked it. It felt a bit rum to be left on my own there, with an empty seat on _either_ side of me. I knew you weren't going to be there, but it would have been nice to have had Chloe to keep me company. That girl knows how to manage such opportunities."

The penny drops. Victor's fork is almost to his mouth, but stops, and a few beans fall off the sides. _Oh shit, Chloe_ … He'd told his dad that she hadn't attended the match because of a family crisis, but at the dinner there were people who would know that they'd broken up. Hell, even the coach already knows. Victor had wanted to wait until Christmas to tell the truth in person; the holidays would give him more time to work out how to explain it in a way that wouldn't upset his father so much.

The runaway train of Victor's thoughts gets derailed as his father continues, "A family crisis? When you lied to me at the hospital about her being called away, I guess it was the bang to your head that made you forget I'd be at the dinner. A number of people came up to me to say how sorry they were about your injury and all that had happened this term. Of course, that made me curious, so I laughed and said 'kids; you know, they never tell their parents what's going on.' Finally got the lowdown over dessert from the Vice-Captain, who said it was a run of bad luck for you — threatening to break off the engagement, and now this injury. Sounded a bit dramatic to me; I'm sure he was exaggerating. The guy didn't exactly sound unhappy, you know, which makes me worry about how you're getting on with the lads in the team. Some of them seemed worried – they think you've been distracted by this hiccup with Chloe." Trevor senior takes another bite of his egg and then chews, swallows and then continues. "Just when were you going to tell me that the two of you were having problems, son?"

Victor puts his fork down. "At home. It's not the sort of thing I wanted to talk to you about on the phone. The coach said I needed to stop thinking about it; what's done is done and so on. Chloe and me… We've been in trouble most of the term and we're really not together anymore. It affected my game. He said I should put the whole damn thing behind me and concentrate on the Varsity Match, and that's what I've done." Not really a white lie, more acase of being economical with the truth.

This gets a wry smile from his father. "Yeah, I heard that story, too, direct from the horse's mouth. He said you had a great future in front of you so long as you stopped your girlfriend problems from getting to you. Seemed somewhat pleased with your performance last night up until that tackle. The coach said you'd gone as far as to break off the engagement." Trevor senior looks incredulous.

Victor nods, and then tries to shut down the conversation. This is the last thing he needs right now. His head is splitting, but he knows that if he doesn't stop his dad from probing, it's all going to come out wrong. "He's right. She did something she wouldn't admit was wrong, which was the last straw. She made her decision, moved out of the flat two weeks ago, haven't talked to her since. I don't really feel up to discussing that right now." It would be best if his dad assumes that Chloe left him for someone else, that he's the injured party.

Victor takes a swig from the coffee and then eats another forkful, this time of egg. Focusing on his plate, he hopes that this will be the end of the discussion, at least until they get home. The two of them concentrate on their food, and silence falls for a while.

He's almost congratulating himself for getting through the breakfast, when his father starts talking again. "Interesting… You're still not going to tell me the whole truth, are you?"

Victor almost chokes on his last mouthful of toast. Around the crumbs, he manages to mutter, "What truth?"

"That you kicked her out of the flat. That you're the one who broke it off, not her, and that she thinks you've been acting strangely this term and that's why things went wrong. You didn't count on some of your team members coming up to dish the dirt, did you? Well, they did, and they seem to agree with her. Turns out a few of them have had their eye on Chloe and always hoped she'd become available again. Just how the hell did you manage to wreck something that we've been trying to build for years?"

Victor hears the _we_ and knows that his face would be red with anger if the bruises and swelling could allow it to show. "Yeah, well maybe that was the problem, Dad. You always seemed keener on her than I was."

His father pushes his tray aside and leans forward across the table. "You listen to me, Victor. Chloe's the best thing that ever happened to you. You've put four, nearly five years into that relationship and I'm not going to let you derail that just because you've hit a bumpy patch of the road. There's got to be a solid foundation there, and we can fix this. She's a fine catch. She's got the grit and the ambition that you've always been short of. Yes, of course, she's a bit spoiled. Christ, with a family name like hers you'd be, too. She's got all the nous, the contacts, the get up and go to make the pair of you into something very special. Whatever provoked this little spat of yours, it can be resolved."

Victor groans. "Look, I'm in too much pain here to deal with this now. You have to take my word for it. Chloe and me — it's over."

"Nope. You're not going to quit on this. I won't let you. This Christmas, you two will have time to talk and sort out any problems. How does that saying go? _The course of true love never runs smooth_. Better get these little tiffs out early in a relationship so that they won't come back to haunt you later, when you're married. This'll clear the air, make you into a better team, just in time for the wedding."

Victor gets up and walks back to the car.

oOoOoOoOo

"Sherlock, open your eyes."

He feels a wave of nausea, not in response to the command itself, but rather the voice that has delivered it. _Mycroft._

"Piss off."

To his surprise, the words don't come out that way, at least not if his ears are hearing correctly. They're garbled, as though spoken with a mouth full of something. Instead of a gradual return to reality in a familiar bed, sensation rapidly bangs back into life, and he realises his head _hurts._ A gasp forces itself past lips which feel very strange and sore. In fact, his whole face feels odd. The peculiar feeling provokes him into trying to open his eyes.

It's a mistake. Bright light stabs into one eye and the other eye doesn't even try to open. His vision in the right eye is blurry, and there seems to be… something is narrowing the field of view that shouldn't be there, something white and out of focus. Instinctively, he reaches up, but before he can touch his face, someone takes a hold of his hand.

"Don't poke. It will only make matters worse."

He closes the eye, wishing it were as easy to close off his hearing, too.

It doesn't work, as his brother's voice intrudes again: "The nurse needs to ask you some questions. Try to answer, please."

It's the 'please' that throws Sherlock, utterly. His brother never asks him for things politely; he orders, dictates or lectures. Something is going on.

"Mister Holmes, do you know where you are?"

It takes a moment for Sherlock to realise the question had been directed at him, not his brother; thoughts feel sluggish. His mouth tries to form words, but his bottom lip doesn't seem to want to co-operate. "Kaymbwish." It doesn't even sound like his voice; there is a hideous nasal tone and the pitch is all wrong. And it _hurts._

The nurse continues. "And can you tell me what day of the week it is?"

He has no idea. "Dewens. How ong hab I been here?"

That gets a wry laugh from Mycroft. "Nurse, don't bother."

The woman's voice continues. "He was like this the first time he woke up, in the ITU, after he was extubated. Do you remember that, Mister Holmes?"

"No." Sherlock wants to ask what has happened to his face, and attempts to do so, but the words come out badly garbled.

Somehow, Mycroft is still able to translate it. "I was hoping you could tell me."

Afraid to shake his head because that is going to make it hurt even worse, Sherlock opens his one eye again. This time, Mycroft comes into view, sporting a concerned expression that always makes him look constipated.

"Seventeen hours ago, you were found in an alleyway next to the flat on Saxon Street. Your wallet was missing, so it's a reasonable assumption that you may have been mugged. It's up to you to tell me whether there is something more to it than common thievery."

Sherlock closes his eye. "Go'way."

He hears Mycroft drag over a chair to beside the hospital bed. It then creaks from that considerable weight of his settling down. Sherlock can't remember anything about how he might have ended up in hospital.

In the meantime, he's in _hell_ , and the arch demon is here to torment him.

"Let's try that again," his brother prompts, "What is the last thing you remember?"

"Wha' ill 'ake you go'way?" His lips are starting to co-operate a bit, but it still comes out a mumble. The right side of his lower lip smarts in a particularly vicious manner when it moves, and he can feel something pulling — possibly a stitch?

"Tell me the truth about what happened," Mycroft repeats like a broken record.

"Donno; can't re'eber. No matter. Take your pwick." This is getting tedious.

There is one of Mycroft's sighs — Sherlock could write a whole dictionary of those. This one is telling him that his brother isn't actually annoyed; worry is the emotion in charge. Still, there's nothing Sherlock can do about that; Mycroft always worries, even when he doesn't have to, and there are no answers to offer.

The ensuing silence allows Sherlock's ears to pick up the buzz of the fluorescent lights overhead. He realises that one advantage of his damaged nose is that it is so packed so he can't smell the usual disgusting cocktail of disinfectant and bodily fluids that he usually does in a hospital ward. It's just the weird metallic smell of blood overlaid with an odd cotton aroma, which he assumes is gauze. The pain in his head is making him want to sleep.

He decides to only feign doing so, but the darkness does takes him soon, anyway.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

A nurse comes to wake Sherlock up every hour; he tries to ignore her. At least Mycroft appears to have left, and he's grateful for the absence he knows will be brief. Sometime after a shift change, a new nurse arrives at the same time as Mycroft does and they go through the same charade as earlier. This time his mouth is getting better co-ordinated at answering the same stupid questions and the nurse seems more satisfied. He wishes he could say the same about his brother's campaign to extract something about what had happened. It is becoming increasingly annoying, not to say a little worrying, that he still can't remember a thing about what had landed him in this mess.

He drifts in and out of sleep for the next twenty or so hours, until it becomes a little easier to stay awake for longer at a time. They give him permission to use the en suite loo, assuming someone helps him there and back. Trying to eat anything, even soft and cold foods, is agony, and he has no appetite, anyway.

He stirs from yet another nap just as the sun is setting. Mycroft has disappeared, and the nurse who soon appears to remove his IV tells him that his brother is sorting out his paperwork.

"You're okay to go home; concussion symptoms are clearing. In two or three days, the swelling around your nose and eye will have gone down enough to so that an ENT specialist can decide if surgery is needed to that nose of yours. None of the other fractures are dislocated in a way that might warrant an operation. You, young man, are just going to have to take it easy and rest."

Sherlock's blurry vision can just about make out a smile on her face.

"And do yourself a favour; try to avoid walking alone down dark alleys," she adds and tapes a gauze on the trickling IV site before disposing of the cannula.

Is that what he'd been doing? He can't remember. His normal evening routine has been to leave the lab at eight, walk across Panton Road and straight down Saxon Street to the flat. Why would he have been in some alley?

She helps him up into a sitting position on the bed. "Nice and slow."

He gasps a bit as his ribs protest carrying weight.

"You've just had a reasonable IV dose of paracetamol and ketorolac so you should be able to manage for a few hours. We'll give you some more pain killers and a couple of ice packs to see you through the car journey. Your brother says you'll get plenty of bed rest with him, and he'll make sure you're looked after."

"Don wanna go London. Stay here."

"That's not possible. There's no reason to keep you in, you don't need to be monitored hourly anymore. Your injuries will heal with bed rest, apart from the nose which will be assessed once the swelling goes down. We're really pressed for beds; there are other patients who need them."

"Got 'ork to do; stay here in Kaymbwidge." His pronunciation is improving. And, his vision is clearing a bit, too, enough to see the curtain around his bed pulled back to admit Mycroft inside. They must have reduced the dressings on his face.

He wonders if Victor has tried to contact him. Maybe he's too busy with his teammates and going back home for Christmas. But, what if he'd tried to call? Would he be worried that Sherlock hadn't answered? He still doesn't even know how badly Victor had been injured! Mycroft hovering about will make it much more difficult to find out.

"Don't be a nuisance, Sherlock. Of course, you are coming home with me to London. You need someone to keep an eye on you while you are recovering and get you to your next doctor's appointment." He's carrying a pile of neatly folded clothes with a pair of shoes on top that Sherlock can see well enough to recognise as his own, taken from his dorm room in Burrell's Fields. "If all goes well, in a week or so, we can go down to Parham for Christmas."

Sherlock swings his legs off the bed, trying to stop the grunt of pain as the movement pulls on his ribs. Crossing his arms in anger, he manages, "Not London. I'm staying at the flat _'ere_ ; stuff here I 'eed to do." By keeping his teeth clenched, he can voice the esses and tees now without moving his swollen and torn lips.

"No." There is something totally unmovable in that one word of negation. Mycroft puts the clothing down beside Sherlock. "You will come with me now, or I will instruct the consultant here to sedate you so you can be taken to a private clinic where I can assure you it will take _much_ longer for you to recover. Push me hard enough, brother mine, and your college will be told that you are suspending your studies for the next term to ensure your full recovery."

Sherlock is outraged and yells at the nurse. "I want to talk to the police. Call them now!" Maybe because he's angry enough, he can ignore the pain to shout this.

"Why?" The nurse asks, looking like a startled rabbit.

"According to him, I have been mugged, so it's my right to report the crime and get it investigated." He turns back to Mycroft and spits out, "Unless you and your minions are behind the assault? Shall I tell the police that I recognised Dryden?" His lips sting around the v's and the m's, but he's so annoyed that he doesn't care. If anything, the pain motivates him even more.

To his surprise, Mycroft's smile is the epitome of composure. "Well, that would be amusing, given that he's been off your case for two weeks. Don't tempt me, Sherlock. The more obstinate you are now, the more attractive a secure clinic is becoming. For your own protection," he adds, his tone a mix of apologetic and sardonic.

Their standoff is broken when a doctor pulls the curtain aside and pushes in a wheelchair.

"Who are you?" Sherlock demands, looking suspiciously at the young man.

"Doctor Simon Shearing. No need to remember that, since you're being discharged." He hands Mycroft a couple of photocopied sheets. "Follow these instructions. When you have a specialist sorted, phone here and we will post the case notes and the scan results." He takes the walking boot off the seat of the wheelchair and prepares to put it on, but Sherlock snatches it and starts doing it himself, wincing when his ribs complain.

"Try to keep your weight off the leg injury for a couple of days; the tendon is inflamed. Tell your physio-therapist to go easy on you for a couple of weeks. Actually, you'd best not see anyone until after Christmas. Your two cracked ribs will take time to heal."

"I want you to call the police."

"Not happening, Mister Holmes. Your memory of events the night before last is still affected—practically non-existent— as you yourself have repeatedly confirmed to the nurse. It's not a problem, as temporary amnesia is common in minor concussions. What it does mean is that, medically speaking, right now you're unlikely to make a reliable report. If in a day or so enough comes back to be able to piece together a convincing narrative, then you should certainly make a phone call to the Parkside Police Station. We have, of course, made detailed notes of your injuries, including photographs."

"This is _outrageous._ I demand to see the hospital lawyer. _"_

Shearing smiles and pats the arms of the wheelchair. "Been there, done that. I was warned by Doctor Summers that you might pull that stunt. According to him, there is no case; he's seen the paperwork giving your brother here the power of attorney, so I am legally allowed to discharge you into his care. The two of you are free to stop by at the police station on your way home, of course." The doctor nods towards Mycroft. "He has the legal authority to impose his choice on you, so don't make me have to administer a sedative. Neither of us would be comfortable with that idea, I can assure you. Wouldn't you want to get out of here, to go rest at home? "

Realising that he has no alternative, Sherlock starts to put on his clothes.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17: Yuletide**

* * *

 **Author's note** : this chapter refers to masturbation. Don't like? Don't read.

* * *

"Happy Christmas, Victor…. Wow, that's a handsome pair of shiners you've got."

It's the second of five annual pre-Christmas parties at the Trevor house. And, if Victor hears that comment one more time, he's going to scream. Seven days after the match, much of the purple is fading to yellow, but one glance in the mirror this morning was enough to tell him that he wasn't going to get away with ignoring it any more than the guests at the party would. His nose is still sore to the touch, but the follow up appointment at the Norwich hospital had said no surgery would be needed.

He gives a painful smile to Lady Anne Frobisher, and mutters: "rugby injury".

"Oh, dear. Not too painful, I hope?"

When he shakes his head, she beams and takes another slurp at the punch. "This is delicious. Why aren't you drinking?"

"I'm on heavy-duty painkillers, so it's not a good idea." It's a convenient truth for him. His father always ends up making it too strong for Victor's taste; vodka and brandy hide behind a sweet cranberry juice and it always ends up making people overly jolly. The hordes of uniformed catering staff have strict instructions to fill every glass they see half empty, which makes Victor wonder why there isn't a police car parked outside the drive to bust people for drink-driving. When he spots his father across the room talking to the Assistant Commissioner for the Norfolk Constabulary, he realises that he has found the answer to his question.

Lady Anne looks around the room that's heaving with people, and asks the other question that Victor has come to hate: "Where's Chloe?"

He's terribly tempted to tell the truth that they are no longer joined at the hip, making him a free man at last. He would love to let the socialite gossiper spread the word throughout the county; she's on just about every charity committee and do-gooder group in Norfolk, which is exactly why his father invites her every year.

"Couldn't make it this year," he lies, "diary clash, I'm afraid". It's the line that his father has insisted he take, and he's not going to argue since it discourages further inquiries. It's none of other people's business what the state of his love life is.

She laughs. "Well, that's bad planning on her part. Your parties are always on my calendar by the end of January."

Her husband is the current Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk, and he arrives at her shoulder to ask yet another iteration of that wretched question: "Tough luck, old boy, about the Varsity Match. How's the injury?"

His shoulder has healed pretty quickly, so he is able to shrug. "On the mend, Sir Nicholas."

"Well, it's a shame you won't be on the annual tour to South Africa. Bit of bad timing on your part. It was one of the highlights of my career on the Light Blues, back in '64."

One of the advantages of classes not starting until the third week of January is that the first rugby team gets to go overseas. It's a chance to train in the warm sunshine and play a few exhibition matches. For those on the team considering professional careers, it's an important opportunity for them to show off in front of scouts for various prestigious teams around the world. Victor had been looking forward to the trip but since he can't play and isn't keen on facing his teammates after such a crushing defeat, it can't be helped. On second thought, he's not so sure he would have enjoyed the copious socialising required from his as the team Captain during the tour. "The price of injury, I fear. I'll be on the bench for the next month at least."

Victor is secretly relieved that he won't have to focus on anything but his studies at the start of the next term. There is the hectic schedule of yuletide entertaining that his father does to get through which will require his presence, but once Christmas is over, he's got plans to cut short his stay in Norfolk and return to Cambridge.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The season of peace on earth, good will to all men drags on interminably.

The 'reunion', as his father has started calling it, is scheduled for Boxing Day. That's when Victor is to go down to Chelmsford and meet up with Chloe. Agreeing to this had been a price he was willing to pay for a let-up in the nagging that had started almost the moment he'd gotten back in the car at the M25 services station; his dad had spent almost every available moment since then singing Chloe's praises. On their way back home from the village's carol service on the twelfth of December, Jack Trevor had gone truly over the top by mentioning how last year Chloe's soprano voice had been a welcome addition to the warbling of the ancient crones who make up the church choir.

Victor had finally lost it and snapped: "She's got a rubbish voice, Dad. The only virtue is that it is loud. Given you're so tone deaf, then maybe you're the one who should have married her. If you mention her one more time before Christmas, I swear I'll take a full-page advert in the Norwich Evening News announcing the end of our engagement."

That had shut his father up.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

A week before Christmas, Victor is so bored at the house that he decides to walk into the village of Colton. Sick of seeing the same four walls of his bedroom where he's been hiding to avoid his father, he bundles himself up in a down jacket and strides off down Highhouse Farm Lane.

Their house is on the southern outskirts of the village, built to order by his father with no expense spared, just before Victor was born. It is ostentatiously new money, but Jack Trevor has never wanted to hide his reputation as a self-made man. Once his business, Anglian Farm Equipment, became successful, he'd wanted a residence that befitted his status. Others may see him mostly as just an Australian immigrant from the far Northern Territory, but the red brick manor house is his pride and joy as well as a statement of his future aspirations to climb into higher social circles.

What the house lacks, in Victor's eyes anyway, is a woman's touch. His mother had died when he was so young that he has no memory of her. The house is an eclectic mash-up of décor; despite living in it all his life, Victor has never really felt comfortable there. His father had picked the heavy, mostly antique furniture more according to the price tag than looks in order to impress others, rather than with a goal of comfort and cosiness. Boarding school and now university have given Victor the chance to see what his own taste might be like – that is, until Chloe had moved in and filled the house with pink throw pillows and shoes. He'd been relieved to see that she'd taken all of them with her back to her rooms at Girton College.

Despite being the only one in the house now that Victor's away at term time, his dad has continued to lavish money on the house, regularly adding another extension or annex onto Colton Grange. This year's indulgence is a huge conservatory that spans the gap between the two wings of the house. That's where the parties are being held, with the heating cranked up to the point where the exotic palms and banana trees in their pots are almost wilting as much as the over-dressed guests are.

Turning his back on the house and starting up the road, Victor decides to grab a pint at the Greyhound Pub. The wind is gusting off the fens; Norfolk is so flat that he swears it must be coming in straight from Siberia, so he snaps closed the top of the goose-down jacket.

Halfway along, a little red post van comes up the lane towards him and pulls to a stop alongside. The postman rolls down the window and announces that he has a parcel for Victor.

"Take it now, will you? Save me the trip down to the house. You're my last stop of the day."

A box wrapped in brown paper is thrust out of the window, and then the postman is already reversing back up to the farm track where he will be able to turn around.

Victor has no idea who would be sending him a parcel. He hasn't ordered anything. He'd bought his father's present in Cambridge ages ago: a handsome coffee table book on the history of the Australian mining industry. He's relieved at not being tormented by Chloe's "letter to Santa" this year — that's what she had called a hand-written list of things she is hoping to get because she'd been ' _such a good girl this year_ '. She had the annoying habit of sticking it on the fridge with a Santa magnet, and dropping too frequent hints about it.

Once Victor gets into the warmth of pub, he realises that the place is heaving with men like him, keen on escaping the holiday mayhem at home. He takes his pint of Shepherd Neame's Bishops Finger off to the corner of the snug and puts the wrapped parcel on the table in front of him.

It is addressed to him in a handwriting that he does not recognise. Oddly, the return address on the upper left-hand corner of the front is his own flat – Number Five, Saxon Street, Cambridge. Perplexed, he decides to open it now instead of waiting for Christmas; he can't even be certain it's intended as a gift.

Once the brown paper has been shed, Victor realises that the sturdy box inside is embossed with an understated and tasteful coat of arms under the name Arthur Shepherd, which he recognises as a gentlemen's outfitter store that is a Cambridge icon. Opening the box, he pulls aside tissue paper to reveal a sweater.

Not just any sweater. The cable stitch down the front is understated but amazingly tactile. He strokes the front and guesses that it must be cashmere. A quick look at the label confirms it is a cashmere and silk blend. The colour is extraordinary—somewhere between imperial purple and a rich burgundy. As he pulls it free from the box and holds it up, he realises that it's his size. A shop like Arthur Shepherd doesn't have things in mundane small, medium and large; this is a numbered chest size that is an exact match with his measurements.

He fishes around in the box to see if there is a card, and he does find one. On it, is a hand-drawn chemical formula C9H6O4. Turning it over, there is no other writing on the card. He's been sent a puzzle*!

The only chemist he knows is Sherlock. Could this really be from him? But… why would he give such a generous and surprising gift? Victor feels a stab of guilt. He's not bought his new friend a Christmas present; it has never occurred to him that he should. He doesn't even send anyone Christmas cards; his father has always signed his hundreds of cards from _Jack and Victor_.

He ponders the chemical formula and wonders what the message could be behind it.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

A week before Christmas, Sherlock wakes up to a slightly alarming sensation in his groin. Lifting the sheet to inspect, he discovers an erection.

 _How annoying_.

Sherlock starts on his usual response to the event, recalling the Periodic Table in numerical order, rehearsing in his head each element's atomic weight, electron configuration, physical properties, chemical properties, and principal means of production. By the time he reaches Osmium, he knows that today, his usual method is not going to deal with his autonomic anomaly.

It happens occasionally, he has to admit. At home he sleeps naked, without pyjamas, because the high threadcount of his sheets here make it more comfortable, even blissful. When he'd been sent away to school and then to university, he'd been forced into a different regime, which dictated that if one was to act in a socially acceptable manner, clothes should be worn at night. Sheets subjected to industrial laundering techniques never feel as comfortable, anyway.

Perhaps the sensory stimulation of contact with Parham's exquisite sheets, made from Egyptian cotton, is what has stimulated this unfortunate appearance of morning wood. _Think of something else_ , he sternly commands himself. But, as much as he tries to meditate on chemistry, his mind flies off a tangent that leads him to remembering his most recent pleasant sensory experience.

It had happened on the second of December. While his eidetic memory is usually a curse, on this occasion he is glad of it because it means he can recall the entire scenario just as he had experienced it back then.

In his mind's eye, the memory starts happening in real time.

He's ventured out of the flat and into the shopping precincts in hope of finding some inspiration for a Christmas present for Victor. Never before has he bought a present for someone to whom he isn't related, and the task was proving stressful and tiresome. Giving a gift is something that friends do and, as Victor is the first person he thinks might fit into the category, he is trying to find a gift that will be appropriate. He is well aware that the wrong gift could confuse, offend, or even repel, which means every possibility he considers is soon shot down to die in the flames of logic.

Sherlock had spent an hour in Heffers finding a dozen books he'd be happy to receive as a gift, but none of them struck him as right for Victor. He has no idea what books would be appreciated. There are almost none in the flat, and he's never seen Victor reading anything other than a text book. A book also seems a bit bland, a bit distant. One could be given to anyone, even someone who isn't important at all. He'd disliked almost every book that Mycroft had ever given him as a present; the titles represented what his brother thought he should read, not what he actually _wanted_ to read.

Next stop is HMV. This is more of a trial because Christmas carols are playing at a hideously loud volume, assaulting his eardrums. Perusing the scanty collection of classical CDs on sale, Sherlock reaches the point of sticking his fingers in his ears, but even that isn't enough. By his own admission, Victor is a novice at classical music, so Sherlock realises that buying him a CD might be seen as somehow patronising. He ends up fleeing from the shop, pursued into the street by the most inane song and lyrics he's ever heard. It's the 'Christmas Number One', according to the announcer, but who is 'Bob the Builder' and why is important that "together we can fix it?" Pop music mystifies Sherlock.

A glance in the window of Oddbins makes him briefly wonder about a bottle of wine, but as he doesn't drink alcohol, he has no idea other than price whether something is 'good' or not. He paces the pavement of Kings Parade wondering if he will ever be able to find something appropriate.

Perhaps this isn't such a good idea after all. He is so new to the minefield of friendship that he is terrified of making a social blunder.

To escape the growing crowds of Christmas shoppers, he steps into the Arthur Shepherd clothing shop, seeking a moment to re-group. The shop is empty of customers, no Christmas carols are playing, and he is able to breathe again. He takes some comfort in the calm order of the serried ranks of suits, trousers and jackets. On the other wall are the neatly folded dress shirts, on shelves according to neck size. Whoever has organised the display knows the value of a colour wheel; complementary shades arranged in the order of the spectrum appeal to his aesthetic sense. He manages his sock index on similar principles.

"May I help you?"

A middle-aged shop assistant in a rather traditional suit approaches, and Sherlock's anxiety level ratchets up a notch. He blurts out that he's just looking. He's been told often enough by Mycroft that this should allow shop clerks to relax and leave him in peace.

"If there is anything you'd like help on, please just ask." The man turns away and busies himself with a table of silk handkerchiefs.

Sherlock walks further into the shop and that's when he sees the knitwear on another table. Piles of sweaters, in different colours. The green, brown, blue and grey he dismisses instantly, because it is the purple cardigan that catches his eye – and holds it.

Fascinated and totally focused on that sweater, Sherlock comes up to the table, and lowers his head to a point just a few inches above the garment, so that it fills his field of vision.

The colour is the exact shade of Ruhemann's purple.

How can that be? How can a sweater have the identical colour of the chemical reaction caused by the reagent ninhydrine? He's always liked the unique shade it develops when interacting with the terminal amines of lysine residues in peptides and proteins sloughed off in fingerprints.

Wondering if the makers of the sweater know this about the colour, Sherlock stands upright again and puts a hand out to touch the ridges and curves of the cables knitted into the front of the sweater. Soon, he has to close his eyes and bite his lip to stop a little moan escaping. The tactile combination of the knitted cabling and the softness of the fibres send an electric pulse of pure pleasure up from his fingers.

Now, the memory of that precise sensation jolts Sherlock right out of the memory and back into the reality of his bedroom. A glance down at the bed shows him that the memory has done nothing to calm the furor going on under the sheets. Somehow his hand has had a mind of its own and is caressing his cock the way his imagination had done to that sweater.

Startled by his lack of self-control, he unhands himself and sits up in the bed. He can feel a blush moving right up his chest to take possession of his cheeks. His healing facial injuries are aching slightly, stretched by the sudden rush of blood.

 _Idiot._ Far from pushing away his unwanted sexual frustration, the memory of finding a present for Victor of all people has increased the demands of his transport.

He knows that it is utterly ridiculous to harbour any sexual fantasies about Victor Trevor. The boy must be as heterosexual as they come, amply demonstrated when he and Chloe had sex. Before Sherlock had come to the flat, the only noise he'd associated with sex came from the school boys of Harrow, whose wanking endeavours were a nuisance to be endured. At least that was usually a solo performance. The duets coming out of the bedroom upstairs on Saxon Street had made Sherlock grab his Walkman and pump up the volume as high as his earphones would take.

He looks down at his cock, which shows absolutely no sign of taking heed of his mental commands to cease and desist.

 _Enough._ He's bored with this. _Just get it over with_.

He unleashes his imagination and feeds it his memories of Victor's body, acquired through the glances stolen in the flat when he wouldn't be noticed looking. Victor is not shy about nudity. Perhaps inured to the presence of other males in the Rugby club's locker rooms, in the privacy of his flat, he often wore the thinnest of t-shirts or went bare chested, kept warm by the heating that Chloe always insists on cranking up to its highest setting. More than once, Sherlock has been envious of Victor's teammates – at how easy it would be for them to feast their eyes on the whole of him in the club showers, without being self-conscious about it. One time, when Victor's phone had been ringing on the kitchen counter, he'd come downstairs after a shower wearing only a small towel around his waist. Sherlock had been forced to avert his eyes lest his reaction to the man take physical form. That time, he'd managed to quell his aesthetic appreciation by the third row of transitional metals on the Periodic Table. Most likely Chloe being in the same room had dampened his enthusiasm, too.

Unlike then, this time he can let his imagination run wild. Victor's physique is nothing short of amazing: broad shoulders, tapering to a narrow waist, every muscle group sharply defined. To Sherlock's eye, he is a living, breathing anatomy lesson. In his fantasy, Sherlock lets himself explore that sturdy neck, the firm bulges of Victor's biceps, the chiselled valleys between the sculptured abs. His mind draws his fingers across the graceful lines of Victor's sartorius. The longest muscle in anyone's body, it is monumentally superb in such a tall man. He envisages trying to get his hands around the circumference of one of those thighs, then exploring what must lie between them.

It doesn't take long for his imagination to produce the desired release.

He snags a tissue from the box on the bedside table to clean up the signs of his failure to elevate mind over matter. Once the physiological reactions of an orgasm start to dissipate, he is able to grasp that this has not been a wise thing to do. Masturbating somehow disturbs him; it always has, ever since his body started betraying him at school. It's messy and he considers it's a weakness that he hasn't learned how to control such pointless urges. He can only hope that adulthood will, at some point, tone down the overload of still lingering teenage hormones, allowing him to escape such distractions.

Sex has always been a means to an end for him — and that end was usually drugs, since the barter economy had been alive and kicking when he lived rough on the streets of London. Somehow, the endorphins released by an orgasm could never compete with a cocaine high, and he'd rarely been aroused himself when doing what was necessary to purchase his next hit. It was simply the renewable currency he had at his disposal. _Quid pro quo_.

Once his brain comes fully back online, Sherlock visualises stuffing the memory of what had driven him to climax into an iron box, padlocks it and shoves it under the bed of his Mind Palace's bedroom. He doesn't venture there often, and with that lurking in there, he will be even less inclined to do so in the future. No matter how much pleasure he had derived from the fantasy, the sexual release is temporary and highly unlikely to ever be reciprocated. He cannot — no, _will not_ — allow his puerile weaknesses to interfere with the way he interacts with his first and only friend.

Sherlock gets out of bed and starts dressing. Mycroft keeps the house rather cool; trying to heat an Elizabethan manor house the size of Parham is always a costly, losing battle. He puts on a thermal vest, a cotton polo neck and then paws through the drawers of his chest to find yet another layer to keep the cold at bay. Eventually, he drags out a heavy navy wool sweater, Mycroft's gift to him last Christmas. It's a little big for him; trust his brother to get his measurements wrong. With two layers of pima cotton between him and the itchy wool, he will survive. For someone who professes to care about Sherlock's well-being, Mycroft's willful ignoring of his sensory sensitivity irritates worse than the fibre itself.

He uses his fingers to comb out the mess that happens to his hair when he puts on a pullover, since a brush would only electrify and turn his curls into a frizzled mess. While rearranging his collar, Sherlock starts wondering what Victor will think of the purple cardigan. He'd rifled through the pile on the table in the men's shop but hadn't found the right size. When the shop floor salesman asked what size was needed, Sherlock had been able to provide exact collar, chest size and arm length. He'd worn one of Victor's own shirts on his first night at the flat, and numerical data easily tacks itself into his memory.

"So, it's for a friend, then?"

There was something in the tone of man's voice that had felt odd, but Sherlock hadn't been able to discern the meaning. Sometimes he despairs of his inability to make sense of tonal cues and expressions of other people.

The size to fit Victor had to be ordered in, and according to the sales assistant, Christmastime meant that it could take up to a week to arrive. Unsure of when Mycroft might intervene and command his presence, Sherlock had decided at the shop to organise it all that very afternoon. The man had assured him that Arthur and Shepherd would gift wrap it and post it directly to Colton, as soon as it came in. He'd filled in a message card to be inserted into the box and gave them the return address as the flat in Cambridge. That way, even if it missed Victor at his home, it should eventually get to him.

Given that his time in Cambridge had been abruptly curtailed, he'd been grateful for his prescience. The attack in Saxon Street had meant that Mycroft had not allowed him to return to the flat. It didn't matter. The gift would find its intended recipient anyway. Perhaps as soon as today.

He tries to imagine Victor's immediate reaction, and wonders whether he will realise that the colour will likely complement his complexion very well. Over the past seven weeks that he has known the boy, Victor's wardrobe choices have been puzzling Sherlock. He wears a lot of sportswear, sweatshirts, joggers – everything made incredibly soft by the repeated washes they have gone through. These are what he wears by choice, so the feeling of them or the idea of what the clothes are designed for must mean something to him. He has no real choice in terms of colour; the Light Blues team is called that because they wear the traditional Cambridge sky blue colours. Victor's older stuff tends to be in Pembroke College's colours – bright blue, with a thin stripe of azure running through it. Then, there is the dress-up stuff in Victor's wardrobe, which Sherlock is almost certain to be what Chloe has dictated he should wear. He'd overheard them discussing their outfits for a formal night out, and Chloe had made him choose something that wouldn't clash with her outfit. Victor's suits, blazers, dress shirts, and waistcoats are all in bland, boring colours: dark, dull navy or grays. Muted, Sherlock suspects, so that Chloe's clothes would always be the centre of everyone's attention. It seems like such a shame to demote Victor to a mere backdrop.

Sherlock thinks Victor will look stunning in the sweater, and he is looking forward to seeing him wearing it.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

*C9H6O4 is Ninhydrin. When reacting with free amines, a deep purple color known as Ruhemann's purple is produced. Ninhydrin is most commonly used to detect fingerprints, as the terminal amines of lysine residues in peptides and proteins sloughed off in fingerprints react with ninhydrin.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18: Awkward Conversations (Part One)**

* * *

It all starts innocently enough. Delighted by the purple cardigan that Sherlock has sent him, Victor wants to call him to thank him personally and to promise that he will be bringing his gift to Sherlock back with him when he returns to Cambridge after the New Year. He hopes to keep secret the fact that he has not actually bought that present yet, and that he'd not even thought of doing so before Sherlock's own gift had arrived. The phone might help on that; Sherlock's observational skills mean that little gets by those remarkable blue-green eyes of his. Relying on just his voice, Victor thinks he can avoid an embarrassing, inadvertent admission of guilt.

It had raised a wry smile when Victor had seen himself in the mirror wearing the purple cardigan for the first time. That a boy who everyone says has no friends would extend such a generous gesture- the honesty of Sherlock's reactions to him had surprised Victor from the very beginning. At the hospital, Sherlock had reached out to him to help fend off his brother and had stood by him when Mycroft Holmes had tried to bully him into walking away from the situation. Even if his injuries at Twickenham give him a sort of excuse, Victor knows that he's been remiss, caught by his own self-centred preoccupations so much that Sherlock's thoughtfulness had caught him by surprise, especially since he hardly owed Victor any kindness. Despite the fact that it had been Victor's fault for failing to control Bullseye that had landed him in hospital, Sherlock has never blamed him for it. His acceptance of Victor's help had been practical instead of an attempt to make him feel guilty for the injury.

This gift needs to be acknowledged.

When he rings the flat on Saxon Street, he gets put through to his own message on the answering machine. Since he always cringes to hear his own recorded voice, he stumbles a bit: "Hi, it's me. Um… Victor. Sherlock, I do hope that you bother to listen to this message. Give me a call on 01603-778256."

He leaves it for a day before his curiosity gets the better of him and he keys in his code to play remotely the machine's messages.

"You have…one… new message."

The recorded voice is then followed by a beep and his own voice, so Victor can only assume that he is the only one who has heard the recording. He finds himself wondering if Sherlock might have already gone home for Christmas; he had, after all, admitted to Victor that his brother might insist on at least the week before and the week after. Sherlock had made it clear that he would have preferred to stay in London if he could, but it was likely that he'd be 'dragged' to the country for Christmas itself.

Victor wonders how the brothers will get on. When he'd first met Mycroft Holmes at Sherlock's bedside in the orthopaedic hospital ward back in October, Victor had realised that the Holmes family came from a privileged background. While both he and Sherlock wore the unmistakeable imprint of a public school education, it had been Chloe's snide comments about what Alice's boyfriend had said that made Victor reconsider about just _how_ privileged. Sherlock seemed to have none of the airs and graces that Victor had assumed always came with the English aristocracy. Even so, he'd decided to ignore all that and has just taken Sherlock at face value as their friendship has developed. Because a friendship is what it now clearly is, isn't it? Why else would he have received such a lavish gift?

Kicking himself for never getting the number for Sherlock's mobile phone, Victor decides to try London directory enquiries. He knows that the landline phone is likely to be in his brother's name, not Sherlock's.

"Yes, M/Y/C/R/O/F/T Holmes. I know it's an odd name."

"Sorry, there is no one of that name listed."

If the number is unlisted, that's a nuisance. After racking his brain to try to remember the conversation in the hospital, he has to admit defeat; he has no idea where Sherlock's home might be, beyond him mentioning West Sussex once when they were talking about rural economies.

That's when Victor remembers Lady Anne, the wife of the current Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk, Sir Nicholas Frobisher. She's precisely the sort who would have Burke's Peerage memorised!

Victor gives her a call and asks if she'd ever heard of someone by the name of Mycroft Holmes.

"Holmes?... Oh, you mean Lord Mycroft. He's something hush hush; civil servant and all that. He's the Viscount of Sherrinford."

 _Bloody hell_. Aristocracy indeed. "Do you know where he might live in West Sussex? I'm trying to get a hold of his brother; he's a Cambridge student as well."

"Parham, darling. It's quite the Tudor pile. Nicholas goes there once a year for a shooting party; best pheasant shoot in the south of England, according to him.*"

"Do you have a phone number?

"Sorry, dear boy. One of Nicholas's contacts, I fear, not mine. I could ask, but he's off somewhere in London at the moment."

Victor waits another two days before realising that Sir Nicholas isn't going to come back to him with the number, and he doesn't want to make a nuisance of himself. Another call to Directory Enquiries, this time covering the West Sussex exchanges yields the same frustrating result _: 'The number you require is unlisted._ ' This one comes from an automated voice; he can't even try to spin a story to get better results.

Not one to give up, Victor broods. He can almost hear Sherlock's slightly exasperated tone, commanding him to _'think strategically!'_. The hours they had spent together going over the playbook before the Varsity match had helped Victor realise that, when a full frontal assault doesn't work on a rugby pitch, the alternative is to use a flanking manoeuvre.

So, to do just that, he rings AFE – his father's company – and asks to speak to the Sales Manager.

"Hey, Steve, Victor Trevor here. Do we do any business in West Sussex? At an estate called Parham? I need a phone number of the estate manager."

"Let me check; I'll call you back."

Ten minutes later, Victor has a number and he dials it in triumph.

"Hello, Mister Bembridge. I'm sorry to trouble you. My name is Victor Trevor, and I'm trying to get a hold of Sherlock Holmes. Could you tell me the phone number of the main house so that I can call there?"

"Sorry, I am not at liberty to give out the number for the residence."

"Is there any way you can transfer me to the main house?"

"Well, I suppose so, but I should warn you: as I understand it, the young Mister Holmes is rarely, if ever, here at Parham. Let me put you through to the housekeeper, Mrs Waters."

Victor waits as he is put on hold. All this, just to get to talk to Sherlock! He is beginning to realise why Sherlock chafes so much at the gatekeepers who surround him.

"Hello, Mister Trevor? This is Mrs Walters. I am the housekeeper here at Parham. How can I be of assistance?"

"You can put me through to Sherlock, Mrs Walters. I'd like to speak to him, please; I know him from Cambridge."

There is the slightest of hesitations. "I'm afraid that won't be possible, at least not immediately. He's not in the house at the moment, and I'm not entirely sure where he is or when he will be back."

"But, he _is_ down at Parham for Christmas?"

Again, there is the slight hesitation, before a cautious reply: "Yes, he is."

Relieved that he's found Sherlock, Victor asks, "Can you get him to call me back? My number is 01603-778256."

An hour later, Victor is in the conservatory reading the paper when the phone rings. He shouts "I'll get that!" to where he knows his father is watching sports in the living room, and races to the extension in the kitchen. There, he picks up the receiver and says a bit breathlessly, "Hello?"

"Victor Trevor." It's a statement, not a question, and Victor recognises the icy, almost disdainful tone.

"Speaking."

"You telephoned wishing to speak to Sherlock. May I ask why?" Mycroft Holmes cuts straight to the point.

The cheek of the man. Victor fumes. "Is that really any of your business?"

"Yes, actually it is. If you think you are going to speak to him without my knowing the topic of conversation, then you will have to think again."

Scared that Mycroft will actually hang up and make him have to beg the estate manager to put him through again, Victor blurts out, "I only want to thank him for something. That's all, Lord Mycroft." He adds the title in almost as an afterthought; perhaps a touch of respect will soften the man.

There is no hesitation; the reply comes immediately. "You are telephoning my brother to thank him for the gift of knitwear from Arthur and Shepherd."

 _Bloody hell._ Had Sherlock actually told his brother about the gift?

Before he can put a reply together, the elder Holmes is speaking again: "You need to understand something, Mister Trevor. My brother has a limited grasp of what is socially acceptable behaviour. His spontaneity is surely embarrassing you by its inappropriateness; please accept my apologies for his behaviour."

There is something very calculated in those words that makes Victor think he is being somehow tested. "No apologies are needed; it's a lovely gift, and I'd like to thank him for it. Will you put him on the phone now…" he adds in a bit reluctantly, "…please?"

"He lacks a grasp on the principles of reciprocity," Mycroft Holmes continues, "Apparel is, of course, an inappropriate choice, as you must realise. Not to mention that the gift is overly generous for its context."

Victor is now thoroughly annoyed on Sherlock's behalf. Who is his brother to say whether or not it is appropriate? "I'd like to speak to Sherlock," he insists. He doesn't want to be rude, but if he stays talking to the elder Holmes he might just be tempted to forget his manners.

"What is your relationship with my brother?"

Now he _is_ going to be rude. "He's a friend, not that this is any of your business."

"You are wrong, Mister Trevor. This, too, is my business because Sherlock does not keep friends; not now, and not even in the past, for the simple reason that he does not understand social relationships the way you do. He requires firm guidance and oversight in such matters."

"I disagree. He's been a good friend to me."

"The fact that you think so is worrying. How? In what way is he a _friend_?"

Victor actually pulls the phone away from his ear to look at it in amazement. He can hardly believe he's hearing these words. Putting it back up to his face, he snaps: "What does that mean, _in what way_? A friend is a friend, and I don't pick apart such things the way you obviously do. What are you implying?" His mind races to what the insinuation might mean.

"My brother is highly vulnerable to being manipulated by unscrupulous individuals. At a most basic level, you could be using my brother's intelligence to get you through some difficult classwork, for example. I've seen the materials at the flat; you were willing to have him coach you on sports strategy – a thoroughly wasteful use of his intelligence. It's not a big step from that to academic assistance, which is in breach of university regulations."

"That's ridiculous. I'm not _using_ Sherlock in any way, least of all to do my coursework for me. We're friends," he repeats, sensing his now circular argument becoming feebler by the minute.

"Hmm. That's what I am beginning to be concerned about. What connection is there between this… _friendship_ of yours and the decision to end your engagement?"

Victor knows his face is turning red; he's just not sure if it is with embarrassment or anger. Perhaps both. "There is no connection." He should hang up. He really, really should.

"Your fiancée's behaviour seems to indicate otherwise. And, the fact that you are so willing to _share your flat_ with Sherlock after her departure also suggests another motive. He will not be returning to Saxon Street when the new term starts. You will cease from all further contact with him. Goodbye, Mister Trevor."

As the line goes dead, Victor stares at the phone in disbelief.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

On Christmas Day, Victor wakes up early. A glance at the clock on the bedside table makes him groan; it's only six o'clock. He flops back on the pillow; he's no little kid, keen to race downstairs and see what Santa Claus has left for him under the tree. He has a slight hangover, brought on by over-indulging in last night's fine claret.

He'd succumbed to the temptation of the wine as a way of giving himself time to think of how to deal with what has to have been the most awkward conversation he's ever had with his father; it seems that mortifying conversations are becoming the theme of this holiday season. Now that there has been no Chloe to deflect his father's attention, Victor is beginning to realise that he's used her over the past four years as a useful cut-out, a way to divert his father away from his mild but constant harassment.

 _Chivvying? Chiding? Berating? Criticising?_ None of those words quite sum up the relationship. His father might like to call it _coaching_ , but that's nowhere near capturing the precise dynamic. Victor has decided that he's been _herded_ for years; his father acts akin to some Australian shepherd dog running everywhere, snapping at his heels, pushing him in a direction he'd rather not go. Ever since he's been home this December, his dad has not been subtle at all, barking at him at every turn along the lines of; "What's wrong with you? Chloe's a grand gal; just the sort of person you need to see you through life."

Victor doesn't want to play this game; he'd really rather not spend his time listing all of her faults to counter his Dad's incessant singing of her praises. He's come to the realisation that their break-up has less to do with her becoming more obnoxious and more about him becoming less willing to tolerate it. Nothing about her has changed that much, it's just that many things he has turned a blind eye to have now begun to disturb him about what sort of a person she is.

Thanks to his father, it has not been a 'Merry Christmas', not in the slightest, and the tension between the two of them had built up all day long yesterday. His father's jolly manner had seemed forced, and Victor had the sense that he is expecting him to play along that there is nothing the matter – that what happened with Chloe has just been a 'lover's tiff'. That's what his father had actually called it, before announcing that 'fences will be mended', come Boxing Day, when he has agreed to meet Chloe in Chelmsford.

On the rare moment when his father has actually been willing to accept that there's a serious problem in their relationship, he has demanded details. So far, Victor has been able to avoid telling him any, even though his reluctance has led his father down some horrible guessing games. He's asked whether Chloe's spent too much money, if she is not working hard enough at her studies, or if this is about her coming home drunk and silly from a girl's night out.

It shouldn't have surprised Victor that, over Christmas Eve supper, he'd been asked whether Chloe had been caught with some other guy. His Dad then launched into a defence of women's right to "root about": "A sheila has a right to sow a few wild oats, just like the guys these days. Live and let live, Vic. She'll be all yours, come June. The wedding plans are sorted; her parents are on the case. If she's been straying a bit, never fear; just a bit of innocent fun before settling down. No one else means the same to her as you do."

There is something so horrible in that statement that Victor had been at a loss how to respond. The way the man had been talking, the whole thing sounded like an arranged marriage – a dynastic merger between two families that thought of their kids as mere pawns.

He'd finally snapped, "Maybe I'm the one who wants to meet someone else. You seem determined to make me change my mind about Chloe. Why? Why is it so important to _you_ that she and I get back together? It's my life, and surely I'm the one who has to make this decision?"

"Because, son, you are too young to know any better. Marrying shouldn't just be a matter of love. Trust me, I've seen what lust and hormones can do to wreck marriages, so if Chloe wants to have her kicks now, let her have her fun. Within reason, you can too, if you want. Just don't overdo it; she's a keeper. You've spent four years getting to know her and her family. Don't blow it over something trivial."

That's just it. It isn't trivial, but he's not prepared to give his Dad the chapter and verse about why. Whatever she's done, he won't stoop to so low a level as to blame her for everything; it's on Victor that he hadn't been willing to open his eyes before to what sort of a person she is. What she'd done to Sherlock, organising his humiliation at the hands of her girl gang, had disgusted Victor, and her refusal to apologise outraged him. But, there is more behind their breakup than just that one incident. Her reaction to Sherlock in the first place had made Victor realise how much she had been running his life.

Maybe he wants the chance to make his own friends. To say goodbye to the empty acquaintances that Chloe has wheeled him in front of for years, to forget the Rugby boys whose idea of fun is to get drunk. To turn down the invites to parties full of vacuous, boring idiots. He's come to realise that the only friend he has had at Cambridge who is actually just _his_ friend, is Sherlock; everyone else is just part of Chloe's crowd, from which Victor feels increasingly alienated. In some respects, the six weeks since he'd kicked her out of the flat have been the most free he's felt in all of his time at Cambridge. But, how to explain all that to someone who thinks that all the people that Victor has come to despise are just the ones he should be toadying up to?

To deflect the questioning, Victor had begun to ask questions of his own from his father: "What about you and Mum? You've never talked much about her. All I know is that you got married in Australia and then moved here. Simon and his dad are the only ones related to her family that you've ever had contact with. Why is that?"

Jack Trevor's face had darkened. "My past is a load of shit, and I've spent my whole life trying to get away from it. I don't want you to have to endure any of that crap. Only child of a couple of banana benders. Her family was just a load of bogans from the northern territory, too stupid to know what was good for them. She had four cousins, three of them were just bludgers. Peter was the only good one, so he escaped. When his wife died, he brought Simon here as a baby so he could escape their whingeing. He's the only one of that Scott clan that had any real gumption."

Pouring himself another glass of claret, his dad sniffed at it appreciatively. "Your Mum was a good woman, but they kept her stupid, didn't let her get educated. So, I stole her away. We didn't have two twigs to rub together to make a campfire but being away from that lot was like gold dust. Mind you, it was bloody awful for the first few years down in Wollongong. Coal mining is a shitty job and selling machinery for it wasn't any better. She was the only child of Sam Scott, so she got a bit of money when he kicked the bucket. It was lucky timing, there was some trouble you don't need to concern yourself with. We used the inheritance to fund our passage here. New home, new life. Don't look back."

"And then she died. So much for the promised land. Why haven't you ever remarried?"

His dad had laughed. "Who'd have me? I'm an Aussie! The English think we're all as cultured as Barry Humphreys. The bloody class system here means I'm an untouchable. Oh sure, they'll come to my parties, drink my wine, eat my food, but I'm still _trade_. I sell tractors and combine harvesters. Not good enough for their class system; it'd be like marrying an Abo back home. Point is, son, you've had all the privileges I can afford to throw your way, just so you get the chance to do it proper, without any baggage to get in your way. You're proper English, public school educated, soon to be a Cambridge graduate. You won't have to worry about being looked down on, the way I have. And, with Chloe as your wife, your kids will have all the status and privileges of the English aristocracy, as well. It's a match, Vic, that will set you up for life."

"It's the life _you_ might want, but not me." He'd thrown down his napkin on the table, grabbed the claret bottle and retreated to his bedroom.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19: Awkward Conversations (Part Two)**

* * *

Christmas dinner at Colton Grange is a bun-fight. Jack Trevor always invites the 'waifs and strays', as he calls them: single women of a certain age, widows and widowers with no kids to go spoil at Christmas, single old blokes who have no family to spoil them but who are valuable customers of Anglian Farm Equipment. The Colton Vicar and his wife always come. It suits his father to act as a beneficent host, dispensing good cheer to those who can't afford it or don't have a family to spend the holidays with. Victor has never liked it much, but he used to have Chloe to keep him at least mildly entertained. This year, there's no protection from others prying into his private matters, and his patience has worn paper-thin by the time the mince-pies and crackers come to the table.

He mumbles his excuses to the elderly spinster on his right who runs the local hospice charity fundraising committee, apologises to the AFE sales manager on his left and then beats a hasty retreat to his bedroom.

There, he opens the instruction manual that had come with his father's Christmas present to him. Jack had been amused by his reaction of delight when he'd opened the box. "It's no surprise. For once, you gave me such a detailed description of what you wanted that there was no room for any mistake. And without Chloe giving me any tips on what you need, I guess this little toy will amuse you. Though I don't understand why you need a phone that fits in your pocket. Your answer machine on the flat's landline does a better job of taking messages."

Victor opens the plastic wrapper around the slim-line flip phone. It's a Motorola Timeport P8767, just released this month—the latest thing in mobile phones. He's never had one before, but he'd seen Sherlock's and got curious. The screen is easily readable, compared to other phones he's seen, which Sherlock had explained is due to its organic electro-luminescent display. The LED technology also means it can be read at night, which Sherlock had demonstrated to him. Victor reads the thin manual and discovers that when it's fully charged, the phone will have up to two hundred minutes of battery life for phone calls. It has a phone book that could take up to ninety-nine entries, and a memory for up to ten calls. It also uses something he'd never heard of before: SMS messaging. He can type a message to someone without having to actually phone them. _Very cool._

He plugs in the charger and connects it to the phone. By tomorrow, he'll be able to make calls without his dad knowing. It's a shame he doesn't have Sherlock's phone number; he'd love to cut through all the crap that Mycroft Holmes had thrown at him and speak directly. He has no intention of listening to that busy-body ever again.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

It's Boxing Day. Although the holiday has nothing to do with the sport, Victor's father can't resist his send-off: "This is your chance, son; Boxing Day re-match. Don't throw in the towel. Give Chloe my love and make sure you come home with that engagement intact."

Victor hadn't laughed. At least his father won't have a ring-side seat, as he had agreed to meet Chloe at a neutral venue nearer to her home.

When Victor arrives at the door of the Lemon Tree Café on Moulsham Street, he's running late and a bit stressed about the whole 'reunion' thing. He'd not factored in the amount of time it would take him to get around Bishops Stortford; roadworks added an extra twenty minutes onto the almost two hours it has taken him to drive the hundred miles from Norwich. Bad holiday traffic hasn't improved his mood, but at least he's been able to escape from Colton Grange for the day, and his dad had insisted on him driving his car. "Good Luck. Take her home in it. Need to impress her with this latest addition to the garage," had been his final comment as he waved Victor out of the driveway.

The one-way system south of the Can River has thrown him a bit, and he's had to park his dad's Jag four streets over—this is the less affluent part of town, and he worries about vandalism.

The café is Chloe's choice for their meeting; Victor's never been here before. Once he's entered, a quick scan of the tiny place reveals her sitting at a table for two at the very back. Victor slips past the queue of rather working class customers at the counter, and then slides into the wooden chair.

"Sorry I'm late, Chlo. Parking was a bit challenging down here. Hardly your usual sort of place, what's the appeal?"

"No one knows me here." A half-consumed cappuccino in front of her, she's wearing a white puffa jacket and a knitted bobble hat, neither of which she's removed, despite the heat being poured out of a vent directly overhead. He puts two and two together and realises that this is some sort of disguise, to further ensure no one recognises her.

He decides not to comment; if she wants to cook that's her problem. He shrugs off his down jacket, hanging it over the back of his chair. "Your choice. Should I bother getting a coffee?"

"Suit yourself. Coffee's lousy; might suit your taste."

That's his answer, then. Chloe's tone of voice is venomous; this might well be a short meeting.

Taking a deep breath, Victor starts. "Okay; I'm here. My dad insisted that we do this, because he still can't get it into his head that we are no longer together."

That gets a wry smile out of her. Chloe is one of those girls whose face can be transformed when her usual truculence is replaced by a genuine smile. This isn't one of them, Victor realises.

She's still smiling. "Yeah. My parents are playing the same game. Bored me witless with why you are supposed to be the best thing since sliced bread. Makes it sound like that special up there on the board."

He glances at where she is pointing; the chalkboard's third item is _Catch of the Day._ He grins. "I know what you mean. Ever since I got home, it's Chloe this, Chloe that. I think my dad wants to marry you. Up for the older type?"

She smirks. "Nope. Plenty of fish in the sea. I don't have to compromise."

Victor nods. "So, I'm right that you aren't going to apologise for organising that Rag prank, and that this isn't a reconciliation?"

Chloe laughs. "No way. I'm just here because the parents wouldn't let up unless I agreed to this meeting. For years, they've been thinking of your dad's money as the down-payment on restoring the family pile in the country. I'm not interested in that. We are _history_ , you and me. I'm moving on. And so should you. Just… don't waste the opportunity, Vic."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

She sighs. "You and me got together when we were too young. People change. You changed. Into something a little… more pedestrian than I expected. Quietly unambitious, that's become your middle name. Whatever my parents think, I'm not going to settle for anyone who isn't up for the real game."

"What's the _real_ game to you?"

She looks out into the crowded café. "Not here, that's for sure. Look at them, Vic. Not two pennies to their name. A land of shell suits, fish and chips. I want a life partner who will keep me away from places like this for the rest of my life. Champagne, a wardrobe to die for, an expensive house in Belgravia, the brood looked after by nannies and private schools. I don't want the _hoi polloi._ That's why I watch so many soap operas; a not so secret delight in saying I'm not one of them, nor will I ever be. Alice's Sebbie's going into the City as soon as he graduates. I'll be set up with some investment banker who's got more money than sense. And you, darling Vic, will be a memory. A fond one for all but the last month, it has to be admitted. But, a memory nevertheless."

Victor looks at the immaculately made up, blonde haired, blue eyed young woman sitting across from him, as if he's seeing her for the very first time. And whatever he might have once felt for her is hardly even a memory. Chloe just _happened_ to him, almost without thinking, without making any conscious decision. Victor can't help but smile when he realises that he's no longer looking at her like that. She's now just someone he used to know.

 _Free at last._

It's shocking to him, in one sense. How is it possible to be convinced that you are in love with someone and intend to spend the rest of your life with them, when in the space of a few weeks, you suddenly see them as just another person, and someone you don't actually like? On the one hand it is so bizarre, and yet, on the other, he feels like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders.

She's looking at him rather intently.

"What?"

"That cardigan. Must be a Christmas gift; I've never seen it before." She's puzzled. "Your dad doesn't have the good taste for something like that." Chloe reaches over and puts her hand on Victor's arm. "Ooh—that's cashmere." She laughs. " _Definitely_ not your dad. You can take the Aussie out of the bush, but not the bush out of the Aussie."

For the first time since he'd put it on this morning in the car, Victor is wondering whether it has been a good idea to wear Sherlock's gift.

Chloe's eyes are dancing. "Not your choice, either. You're too unsure about your image; you've left it to me for four years to tell you what you look good in." Now she laughs. "Bloody hell, Vic. The Freak's bought it for you. Leave it to a gay guy to have the fashion sense and good taste to know what looks good on you."

For once, Victor controls his blush; he's annoyed at Chloe's use of the F-word. "Don't call him that."

"This is what I meant, Vic. You don't think things through. You're acting like you're besotted. Hanging around a gay weirdo is not going to do your reputation any good at all. You don't want to be tarred with that particular brush, do you? I bet he's after you and you don't even see it coming."

"Don't be so dramatic, Chlo. Sherlock's not like that. He's just a friend. I'm not a homophobe like my dad is."

She smirks. "A friend… yeah, who buys you an expensive sweater as a Christmas present. Speaking of Christmas presents," she points to her Louis Vuitton handbag. He doesn't recognise it, so assumes it is new.

Victor interrupts. "I didn't get you a present Chloe, despite my father wanting me to do so."

She smiles broadly, her pink pearly lipstick showing off her teeth. "Oh, don't worry. I sold your engagement ring. It should fund my wardrobe budget for quite a while. This bag is my first purchase. I call it my _fuck you_ bag."

He rolls his eyes.

"Anyway, I've already had my Christmas present from you."

"But, I haven't bought…"

"No, numpty. You haven't. But I have yours right here…." She brings out an envelope, one that Victor recognises. It's that distinctive mustard yellow flapped thing, with a Kodak logo at the bottom. "I can tell you that getting this was the only present I wanted from you. Actually, it's more of a goodbye gift than a Christmas present, but whatever." She slides the slim packet of photos across the table.

When he opens the pack, Victor sees the back of a small number of photos, not the usual whole developed roll. Lifting them out, he fans them to see four photos, and starts to turn them all over.

She puts her hand across his, stopping him. "Start at the beginning, Vic. Turn them over one at a time; I want to see your reaction."

He stops and takes a deep breath. "What game is this, Chloe?"

"No game. Just a little payback." She uses her long pink varnished fingernails to turn over one of the photos.

Victor sees a rather dark photo. He has to lean over the table a bit to get a better view. A group of men in a street. It's a bit blurry; the photographer has had to push the exposure to compensate for an obvious night shot.

"Look closely; recognise anything or anyone?" She sounds almost gleeful.

When he picks it up and lets the light from the wall lamp above the table fall across the photo's shiny surface, he recognises the place.

"It's Saxon Street; right outside the flat." Three of the figures have their backs turned to the camera. There's a half obscured figure looking at them, and then two men behind him. Their faces look familiar. Victor struggles for a moment with the context and then nails it: Reggie Saunders and Paul DelVecchio. "Rugby; these two guys are from the Fifteen Club."

Chloe is smirking. "Look at the date."

Victor flips the photo over and sees the date printed by the developing machine; it always gives the date the photo was taken: 3 December 2000.

Only the Blues, the first team, went to the Varsity Match. The second team, the Fifteen Club, traditionally watched at the clubhouse on Grange Avenue. The time stamp was after his injury, well after the final whistle.

"They were really pissed at the result, you know? Got tanked up at the pub and came looking for me, saying it was my fault that you'd not had your mind on the game. Blamed 'girl trouble' as the cause of your crap captaining, letting the team down. Well, I wasn't going to let them blame me, so I told them the truth, and just where to find the _right target_."

Victor pulls the photo closer to his face, so he can get a better look at the dim figure in the middle. He makes out pale skin framed by dark curly hair, and his heart sinks. "Chloe, what the hell?"

"Vic; I've wasted four years of my life thinking you were the one. Thanks to that jerk, I know you're not the man I thought you to be. Revenge is sweet." She flips over the other three photos, and Victor's eyes widen in horror.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

"How did you get this number?"

If the first time Victor had spoken on the phone Lord Holmes' tone had been cold, now it is positively arctic.

"It doesn't matter." Actually, it does; it was sure to get back to his father eventually that he'd browbeaten the Frobisers into giving him a telephone number for Parham; turns out Sir Nicholas had it on an invitation card for a shoot that had happened in November.

Victor had been slightly surprised when the phone had been answered by someone named Frank Wallace. It turns out he is the gamekeeper, which makes perfect sense. Victor had explained that he is a student at Cambridge and that he'd just heard that Sherlock had been mugged. Could he transfer the call to the main house?

Frank Wallace sounded like a nice man, genuinely delighted to hear that Sherlock had made a friend at university. He'd put the call through to the main house, but it was Mycroft who had answered.

Victor hadn't expected to speak to Sherlock directly; he had a hunch that Mycroft would intervene yet again, but none of that mattered as much as finding out that Sherlock was okay. Judging by what he'd seen in Chloe's photos it's very possible that he might even be badly injured.

Victor continues, "Lord Holmes, I think I understand why you said what you did when I called before Christmas. I've just been told today that Sherlock was mugged in Cambridge. I didn't know until today. I'm calling because I want to know if he's okay. It doesn't matter if I don't speak to him directly; I just need to know. Please."

Victor might have once been embarrassed to beg in such a manner but right now, he is so distraught over what Chloe had done that he can't think straight, nor does he care what Mycroft Holmes might think about him.

"How do you know about the assault?"

Victor had been torn about how much he should say—whether he should admit to knowing who the muggers were and how Chloe was behind it. His first instinct had been to go to the police with the information, but Chloe had taken the photos with her, so he had no proof. Then, it had occurred to him that Sherlock might not welcome the publicity. That had led him to wonder whether Sherlock had known who his assailants were, and whether he knows of Chloe's role in it and the earlier prank. If he does, then he's made no attempt to contact the police, because if he had then Victor would likely be having an even more alarming conversation with his elder brother.

It's best to keep his answer to Lord Holmes' question circumspect: "Rugby club gossip, that's all. If there's no truth to it, tell me. Given what you said to me before Christmas, I think you were being protective—with good reason— and that you thought that I was involved. I can assure you I wasn't. I had no idea. Please tell me: how is he?"

"His injuries will heal, but my unwillingness to have you anywhere near him in the future will not change. Your _friendship_ with my brother has cost him a great deal. First your dog, and now your other bitch have wreaked havoc with his health. You will leave him alone. You will not contact him or this house ever again."

 _He knows about Chloe._ Victor has no idea how that is even possible, but he realises that if the police had been told, then Chloe would never have showed him the photos, and the news about the Fifteen Club team members being arrested would have spread like wildfire. Victor gets the feeling that Lord Holmes is not the type to swear very often, so his use of the epithet shows the depth of his anger. Yet, he hasn't told the police. _Why?_

Victor is not going to just disappear, though, whatever the elder Holmes might think. "I think that is Sherlock's decision to make, sir, not yours. Maybe the reason why you say he's never had a friend before is because you won't let him. You said he doesn't know what friendship means, but I think he's been a good friend to me. If he tells me that he wants no further contact, then I will agree, but only then."

After a brief silence, Holmes replies, "What do I have to offer to make you go away? Is it money? Or perhaps a threat will be more effective. Shall I report you to the authorities? Establishing you as an accomplice would be child's play, since you are clearly at the centre of this sordid affair."

"I've done nothing wrong, and no amount of money or bullying threats will make me abandon Sherlock's friendship unless he says he wants that."

There is an exasperated snort at the other end of the line. "Your loyalty is completely misplaced. You have no idea what your stubbornness is going to lead to. Goodbye, Mister Trevor. I shall not wish you a Happy New Year. Thanks to you, my brother will hardly be in a mood to celebrate it, either."


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20: Awkward Conversations (Part Three)**

* * *

On the twenty-fifth of December, at a quarter to midnight, Mycroft pours himself his customary Christmas brandy—three fingers of Remy Martin's finest Excellence XO—and settles down in front of the log fire in his study. He needs time to think, and think hard.

Since they'd driven down from Addenbrooke's Hospital to Parham, Sherlock has been defaulting into his selective mutism. For the first week, Mycroft had simply accepted that the pain and discomfort of his head and facial injuries would have dented Sherlock's enthusiasm for conversation. He'd slept an inordinate amount, perhaps due to the painkillers. The trip to the ENT specialist on Harley Street had passed in silence; Sherlock had kept his eyes closed for the whole of the chauffeur-driven journey up to London and back to West Sussex.

The ENT specialist had confirmed no surgery would be needed and that the boy's broken nose would soon be healed. "Back to normal by January," he'd promised. Sherlock's communications with the physician had been limited to a nod.

Mycroft's always been slightly envious of his brother's nose; it is in better proportion to Sherlock's eyes and cheekbones than his own rather more prominent feature. Alas, he takes after his father, whereas Sherlock has inherited the much more desirable Sherrinford look.

He swirls the cognac and watches the deep, rich tones catch the firelight in the Waterford cut glass balloon. He takes another deep sniff. At least his nose is good for this purpose: sultanas, vanilla, ripe grapes, sponge cake and a hint of dark marmalade. It's almost better than the taste, which is rich and spicy, a hint of cinnamon and cloves barely concealed. It also has some drying tannins which tingle along the sides of the tongue, as well as some cooling menthol notes. The melange of sensation calms him, and that fact brings a hint of unease back into his posture. He shouldn't need calming; it's a weakness that he can't solve this particular problem without the assistance of alcohol. Then again, his brother has often been _that_ kind of a problem—one that cannot be solved simply through logic and strategy. He will need guile and subterfuge, if he is to succeed.

It hasn't helped that the barely a dozen sentences Sherlock has been willing to say to him in the past week have been tediously domestic, offering no tangible evidence as to his mental state. Every time that Mycroft has tried to raise the topic of the assault, Sherlock has made a swift tactical retreat into silence and solitude. Christmas dinner today had been particularly excruciating. As expected, Sherlock had eaten less than what would fit on a tea cup's saucer. Without a doubt he associates holidays and family meals with their father and taxing formal social occasions; anxiety always decimates his appetite.

Sherlock's reluctance to discuss the incident has led Mycroft to explore several different possibilities regarding the motivation of the assailants. It is annoying, however, to have to deduce the situation rather than talk about it outright. The toxicology report had shown Sherlock was clean—not just at the time of the assault, but the hair sample test results had come through just before Christmas, proving that the boy has not been taking drugs since he'd gone up to Cambridge. It's not conclusive, though; Sherlock could have been robbed and assaulted trying to make his first purchase. If so, it is puzzling. What could have driven him to that state of mind? So far, Sherlock has managed to cope with a university's lack of discipline in his life that his schooling at Harrow had previously enforced. That had been a welcome surprise. It seems that he'd managed to put behind him the demons that had driven him to spend six months living rough on the streets of London. He has stayed drug free, once the stint in rehab had cleared his system of cocaine and heroin and given him a more constructive direction, and his grades in his first year at Cambridge had been exemplary. Between his first and second years, the summer internship at Columbia University in New York had passed without incident*. And, Mycroft had been relieved that there'd been no evidence of significant bullying at Cambridge, according to the private detective who had been keeping an eye on him at the university.

Until this term, that is.

What had caused the Rag Week attack is still a mystery, and this more recent severe assault is even more puzzling. When the boy had coped with rough street life, he must have developed some kind of defensive strategies to deal with violent threats. Sherlock has always been a master of avoidance; getting caught so spectacularly flatfooted in an alleyway was clearly a lapse of judgment and a loss of his street sense. Is Sherlock unwilling to talk about it because of the incident being related to illegal activities? Or, is he embarrassed by a simple failure to avoid a bog-standard assault?

Could there be other motives behind his silence?

That last question has been worrying Mycroft, because he can think of another motive for doing something illicit with a man in a dark alley. Sherlock could have been a victim of a sexual assault, or a homophobic reaction to a consensual assignation. Mycroft has never been certain about his brother's sexual orientation. The transactional nature of sex for drugs was all about satisfying the dealer, and Mycroft has no idea whether Sherlock ever derived any pleasure from those encounters. Perhaps he has merely lacked the opportunity to test his appetite for female companionship?

As he swallows a bit of brandy, Mycroft knows he has to deal with the issue of Victor Trevor. That boy is an enigma, which is annoying in the extreme, and Mycroft cannot escape the suspicion that there is a pattern here that he isn't seeing yet for lack of evidence about the student. All the investigations—first by the private firm and now more recently by his own people—have revealed that the young man seems to be what he appears to be. The only son of an Australian immigrant who has more money than sense, Trevor attended a minor public school and managed to scrape into Cambridge more on his rugby skills and father's connections than by any brilliance in the classroom. Victor Trevor is ordinary, intellectually pedestrian, rather dull. What possible attraction could there be for Sherlock? They have almost nothing in common in terms of their interests, which leads Mycroft down various unsavoury paths, even into dark alleyways. Is it about drugs? Sex?

When his little brother was a child, things were easier. With Sherlock in Harrow, Mycroft could rest somewhat reassured that there were others willing to act _in_ _loco parentis_. But, that had come spectacularly unstuck just before the boy had been due to go up to Cambridge. That's when Ford had made his move and caught Sherlock, subjecting him to a cocktail of drugs, abusive sex and petty crime. Well, not so petty when he'd managed to escape his captor by administering what appeared to be a drug overdose. Pre-mediated murder, manslaughter, or self defence? Who knows?

Ford had thrown the evidence at Mycroft and used it to extort his compliance. When Mycroft tried to break them both free from this threat, the resulting catastrophe had given Ford yet more blackmail material. The memories of this debacle make him take another couple of swallows of brandy.

After two years of being under the man's thumb, Mycroft has spent the past seven months building a dossier that should remove some of the threat, but he has not yet figured out how to deal with the explicitly graphic and incriminating blackmail material that sits somewhere out of reach—a sword of Damocles hanging over his and Sherlock's heads.

Glaring at the bottom of his empty glass, Mycroft sighs. He gets up and pours himself another two fingers of brandy. Sherlock is a five fingers' problem. _Ever thus._ The boy has been a constant worry for Mycroft ever since he was born. While his mother was still alive, she'd carried the burden, but he was still expected to play his part in keeping his brother occupied and out of trouble. Even after her death, it had taken him a year to wrestle legal control away from his father, because he'd promised his mother that he would always look after her younger son. When their father died, Mycroft had been saddled with the responsibility of his brother's welfare when he had been scarcely old enough to vote. When it was just school boy bullies that threatened Sherlock's safety, things had been easier. Once Ford got involved, keeping Sherlock out of harm's way became a matter of life and death.

Is Ford somehow connected to this current mess of the Saxon Street alleyway? Could he have somehow suborned this Victor Trevor into seducing Sherlock? It is one of Mycroft's greatest fears—Sherlock succumbing to his emotions and being dragged into further stupidity. No evidence has been found yet, but his people are digging deeper.

Sherlock remains blissfully unaware of the danger of Ford; he has no idea that he even has a half-brother. And, Mycroft has no choice but to keep it that way. If he had to make a wager now, he wouldn't pin this most recent mess on the man. As plans go, this one would have been too fraught with uncertainty. Ford likes better odds.

Mycroft allows his eyes to rest on the flames in the fireplace. It is becoming obvious that he's still lacking data about this latest development regarding Sherlock. His people are investigating several avenues of what happened in Cambridge, but Mycroft needs answers—soon. He has to get to the bottom of this before time runs out. Once the holidays are over, Sherlock will disappear back into student life, out of the reach of brotherly protection.

oOoOoOoOo

"We need to talk."

Four days after Christmas, enough of the evidence has come together that Mycroft can no longer delay this conversation. Looking down at the chaise longue where Sherlock has sprawled his gangly limbs, he takes a moment to scrutinise the fading bruises and healing cuts. Sherlock's eyes are closed, meaning that his long lashes can now be seen again against skin that is almost as pale as it used to be before the swelling and bruises had hidden them from view. Only the area below the right eye is still a brownish yellow; the crack in the zygomatic bone below the eye is healing, but slowly.

Sherlock has no idea that his pose looks like a swooning Victorian damsel. It rather suits the melodrama that has characterised their Christmas.

Mycroft raises his voice, "Sherlock, I _know_ you can hear me perfectly well; I need to have a word with you."

His brother keeps his eyes closed and the ear buds in, stretching a languid hand down to the Walkman beside him, turning the dial to increase the volume.

"Enough is enough," Mycroft remarks, reaches down and pulls the headphones jack out of the CD player.

A pair of blue-grey eyes snap open, angry. "Piss off."

"No need to be rude. You've been avoiding this ever since you got home. Just… get it over with, for once. It's just a conversation."

A histrionic sigh is followed by Sherlock sitting up. "What is it, _now_?"

"You need to see something." Mycroft hopes that this is sufficiently ambiguous that it will stoke Sherlock's curiosity—enough for him to come to the dining table where Mycroft has been working all afternoon. The country's security needs never take a holiday, so Mycroft's PA has delivered a whole pile of files and briefings, one of which Mycroft hopes to deal with right now.

Sullenly, Sherlock gets up, stretches like a feline and then ambles over to the table.

"Sit." Mycroft's honed his tone of command into a fine point; his work requires it, but his years of dealing with his brother have also provided ample opportunity to sharpen it. He will need all his guile and skill to deal with this situation; Sherlock is no longer a child. No matter how inept his little brother is at social interactions, Mycroft has always been aware that the day would come when adult relationships—including sex—would become an acute issue. If this is what is behind the assault, then Mycroft has to nip this in the bud. The assault is proof enough that Sherlock has spectacularly failed at following Mycroft's advice to keep his head down, focus on the work, stay clean, and keep out of trouble.

But, how to address such a matter? How can he convince Sherlock to take the right decisions regarding the people with whom he interacts?

Mycroft sits down across the table from where Sherlock has slouched down in the opposite chair. After a lot of thought about the best strategy to deal with this, Mycroft has decided that any angle he takes, other than a head-on approach, will simply allow Sherlock to wriggle sideways. The boy has honed his avoidance skills to such a fine art that the only way to engage him is to make him angry enough to reveal his emotions.

Mycroft reaches for the third folder down in the large pile, bringing it to the top. He extracts a single sheet and then slides it across the table right side up so Sherlock can see it. "You are familiar with this."

Sherlock glances at the poster—at his own lipstick-smeared and glittery image—and rolls his eyes. "Why am I not surprised that you would want your own copy? Plan to have it framed and put up on the wall? It will look just perfect next to one of the Sherrinford portraits, don't you think? Do you want me to autograph it for you?"

Ignoring Sherlock's sarcasm, Mycroft taps the poster. "This wouldn't have happened if you hadn't blackmailed Dryden into keeping his distance."

Sherlock shrugs. "So what? A prank. Rag Week. It happens. No lasting harm done."

This dismissal irritates Mycroft. When he'd first found out about it, he'd been more concerned about the appalling failure of the private detective he'd hired. Once that had been dealt with, Mycroft had wondered if Sherlock's ability to shrug it all off was a sign of growing maturity, or just another form of avoidance. The latter would mean it could still damage the boy's fragile ego, something that had routinely led him astray in the past.

"Why did you want to attend the concert without being watched? Were you with someone?"

"None of your business."

That confirms Mycroft's worse suspicions. If he'd been with someone, then perhaps that someone had been tasked with luring Sherlock to a specific spot to allow the girls to find their prey. "Did it never occur to you to ask why these girls chose you for their target?"

"It was just bad luck. I didn't anticipate they'd be doing their stunts in front of a venue for a classical concert; it's an unlikely place for such stupidity. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

" _Wrong_." Mycroft shakes his head. "I'm disappointed in your lack of curiosity. It didn't take much to find out that the gang that attacked you were from Girton College. I don't suppose you recognised any of them?"

"No, of course not."

"Perhaps you will recognise this particular member of the entourage." He slides across a photo of five girls in pink tutus with fairy wings and glittery make up. "The fourth one along from the right is Chloe Seaman."

Sherlock's brow furrows. "She wasn't there; not part of the group that pranked me."

"How observant of you." Mycroft lets sarcasm underline each word. "This group photo was posted on the Girton College Student Union Rag Week bulletin board, if you could have been bothered to go search for it. At the time you were attacked, Miss Seaman was about 200 yards away." He pulls another photo from the file and pushes it across the table.

Sherlock shrugs. "She has an alibi, then." When he picks up the photo, the furrows between his brows deepen. The photo is black and white, and rather grainy. "This is CCTV footage."

"Yes, the campus cameras caught Miss Seaman and Victor Trevor in discussion nearby at the exact time of the assault."

"How did you come by this?" Suspicion gives a hard edge to Sherlock's words.

"The Cambridge University proctors have been very helpful. Not just about the most recent and serious assault, but about this precursor, too."

Slamming down the photo, Sherlock snaps, "I said: _no police investigation._ "

Mildly, Mycroft replies, "The Cambridgeshire County police force have not been involved, nor will they be. But, the university authorities are _not_ police."

Resting his elbows on the polished oak table, Sherlock leans forward. "Have you ever once considered _my_ interests in this? Why would I want to draw yet more attention to this ridiculous incident? What you're suggesting just adds grist to the mill, and what they did is barely a crime. What happened here…" he stabs the poster, "… had nothing to do with my being jumped by a group of louts after my wallet."

"Wrong… _again_." It seems that Mycroft's strategy of making Sherlock angry enough to engage is working; he's not retreated into mutism or fled the table. _Good_. Time to add fuel to the fire. "Really, Sherlock, I am rather disappointed in your failure to deduce the connection." Mycroft reaches into the manila folder again and pulls out another photograph. "This was found in Miss Seaman's college rooms when the proctors searched it." He clears the other two photos aside and puts this one in the centre, in front of Sherlock. "Recognise it?"

Sherlock goes very still.

The location of the photo has been confirmed by Mycroft's men as Saxon Street at night. There are six figures in it; three facing away from the camera, looking at Sherlock, with two others coming up behind him.

Without waiting for confirmation from his brother, Mycroft lays out two more photos beside it. The first shows three men tackling Sherlock; the second is of him going down on one knee when his leg gave way under their weight. "Do you recognise any of them?"

Sherlock shakes his head. "No. I told you that. Repeatedly."

"Did they say anything?"

Sherlock shakes his head again. "I don't know; I can't remember. It happened very fast; I do remember that much."

Mycroft knows his brother well enough to deduce the lie. He's not going to say what he knows because he is protecting someone. Mycroft takes in that comment and files it neatly in his mind's archive.

"Well, this might help jog a memory." Mycroft puts a third photo down. This one shows him being upended, legs in the air, and his face being smashed into the cobble stones. He says quietly, "I have been told this is called a 'spear tackle' and it is illegal, banned worldwide from Rugby pitches because of the high risk of a skull fracture or breaking an opponent's neck. These thugs knew exactly how to do it. The two assailants behind you, whose faces are visible, have been identified as members of the Fifteen Club, the second team of the Cambridge University Rugby Football Club. Perhaps you already knew that, given your sudden recent interest in the sport."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Another blatant lie, and this time it's clear that Sherlock is rattled enough by the conversation not to have realised that Mycroft would have seen the rugby club playbook into which notes had been made in Sherlock's handwriting, and the diagrams drawn on sheets of paper in the sitting room, when he visited the flat to collect the boy's clothes before he was released from the hospital.

Sherlock needs to raise his game, so Mycroft needles him: "Think it through, brother mine. You were very, very lucky to have escaped with the injuries you have. Deduce further for me: who else should we be looking for as involved in this vicious assault?"

Sherlock looks up, startled. "There is no CCTV on Saxon Street, and these photographs were clearly taken with a high-spec camera, one capable of night exposures. So, a sixth person—the photographer."

Snorting at Sherlock's rather literal interpretation of another participant, Mycroft had hoped Sherlock would draw the link himself. Perhaps he is still trying to protect Trevor.

"Obviously. Now, who is the most likely to take on that role? Visits to only a few places were needed before the photo counter clerk at the Superdrug on Sydney Street recognised Miss Seaman as the one who brought the roll in for development. She is also the person who brought in the shot they turned into a poster to humiliate you. The clerk remembered her because she got them to print the posters; quite a striking blonde, I gather. He said she was very pretty."

Sherlock is looking at the third photo. "If you like that type," he mutters.

Mycroft takes in that comment and files it neatly in his memory. Sherlock's reaction does not bode well, and he is beginning to worry that his brother may have lost his sense of self-preservation due to teenage hormonal urges. To provoke, Mycroft flippantly replies, "Well, clearly, the antipathy between you two is mutual."

"Are you suggesting that she is the photographer who took these? I never saw such a camera in the flat. Why would the clerk care what photos she was picking up—students must bring in weird images from parties and such all the time? Film is sent away to be developed. There's nothing conclusive that says these photographs were taken by her."

Sherlock's deductive skills do not disappoint Mycroft. If only he'd chosen to use them earlier then maybe all this could have been avoided. "Yes, of course; what I've just said about a possible link is circumstantial. She's sharing a room in the college with an Alice Morrison, who does possess such a camera. Miss Morrison has a rock-solid alibi for the time when you were assaulted on Saxon Street. It is logical to assume that someone else used her camera to take the photos."

Sherlock tosses the photo back on the table. "In a court of law, it would be impossible to prove that any particular camera took these pictures. It could be argued that either girl could have been given the film rolls by a third party for developing. This is why I said a police investigation is pointless. These photos wouldn't be admissible in court without knowing who'd taken them. Everyone would deny it. And, in any case, I don't want this to be investigated at all. I told you that. And, unsurprisingly, you ignored my wishes. _Again._ "

Mycroft raises his eyebrow dismissively, knowing the gesture will infuriate his brother even more. "Here is some more conclusive evidence that will satisfy even you. Found in a place that was better hidden, these two photos may make you change your mind."

He puts the first one in front Sherlock. It's a close-up, taken with a flash, the harsh bright light showing his head face down, a puddle of blood splashed across the cobbles. A colourful platform boot is pushing his face into the stone. "A shoe of similar colour and shape was found in Miss Seaman's wardrobe."

Sherlock has a slightly startled look on his face, but Mycroft is not minded to stop. "Now, for the _pièce de resistánce._ " He pulls out one more photo and places it in front of Sherlock.

The image is a parody of one of those African safari big game trophy poses. Alongside Sherlock's unconscious form, Chloe is down on one knee, smiling at the camera. She is holding Sherlock's head up off the ground by his hair; pink polish on her fingernails is visible through the dark curls. Caught in the harsh light of the flash, his face is a mangled mess of torn flesh and ripped skin, his mouth hangs open, nose, teeth and lips bloodied.

He watches Sherlock take it all in, and then lean back in his chair. His blue-green eyes are looking everywhere in the room except at the table. But, he says nothing.

"Taking and keeping such a photograph was remarkably stupid, so her desire for revenge must have been stronger than her common sense. Why, Sherlock? Why does she hate you so?"

" _I DON'T KNOW!"_

This is almost shouted. Mycroft can judge by that fact just how rattled Sherlock is; he's never been able to control the volume of his voice when he is pushed to the edge. Mycroft has to be careful now; he can't just bulldoze through the rest of this conversation without running the risk of pushing Sherlock into a meltdown or at least a shutdown. He will need to ask difficult questions and to get sensible answers.

He decides to fill the silence with words of his own to give Sherlock a chance to re-group. "The Girton College authorities were appropriately horrified by these photos. They immediately brought the case to the attention of the University Advocate. Yesterday, I was informed that, in his view, there is a clear breach of articles 5 and 6 of the proctorial notice on university discipline—a case of harassment as well as intentional endangerment of your life. He wanted me to make a complaint to the police of assault with intent to commit grievous bodily harm, but I advised them of your wishes," he offers amicably. This would have been a pertinent point to make earlier, but he had wanted to go address the events chronologically to see if there was any angle there that might get Sherlock to comment.

Sherlock is still unable to put words together, so Mycroft ploughs on. "The Court of Discipline will be held in January. Chloe Seaman will be informed on the 2nd of January. The proceedings are private, although the accused can call witnesses. I have no doubt that this will result in a decision of _bannimus_ , rather than rustication. She won't go to jail, but she won't get her degree either."

Sherlock glares at him, and Mycroft can see that he's only barely containing his anger. "I didn't want _any_ of this, but would you ever listen? No, of course not!"

"We can't just ignore what was done to you, nor can the University."

"Most of them ignored me or disliked me before; now they're all going to _hate_ me."

"Surely the majority of the student body would not condone life-threatening assault."

Sherlock gives him an eye roll. "You wouldn't understand."

Mycroft wets his lips, and resumes. "The evidence regarding the two identified Rugby team members has been sent to the officials at the club. It will be up to them to find out who the other three were, if they can, and to take action against them. I doubt that any of them will be permanently excluded from the university, but it is likely to involve the temporary suspension through rustication and, of course, expulsion from the club. Their colleges may take a different view, but that is a matter for them."

Silence is the only reply he gets.

"What is it that you think I would so fail to understand?" Mycroft asks, leaning over the table slightly in trying to get Sherlock to meet his gaze. He had realised that there is something buried in his brother's resigned earlier statement that is likely the heart of the matter.

Finally, Sherlock finds his tongue. "I just don't want any of this…" He no longer sounds angry but pained, as though faced with a dilemma without a solution. His earlier anger has completely evaporated.

Now, Mycroft can move the discussion on properly. He asks quietly, "Why?"

"Because you've made me into a target; people will hate me now."

"Since when have you cared about what _people_ have thought? Surely your safety is more important than that."

Silence.

"Other people, plural? Or are we talking about a very specific individual? Would that be Victor Trevor, by any chance?" Mycroft needs Sherlock to acknowledge at least this much.

Sherlock still won't look at him.

"What is your relationship with Victor?"

This question seems to confuse Sherlock. "Relationship? What do you mean, _relationship_?"

"Just that; what is that boy to you?"

Rather rapidly, Sherlock blurts out, "I've been using a room at his flat so technically, he's my landlord."

Mycroft has to admit that this feeble attempt at deflection might be a tad endearing. "Most people don't buy their landlords expensive knitwear."

That gets him a sharp look. "Been coming up with even more ways to spy on me?"

"I was merely looking at credit card purchases on a card that had just been stolen."

"Then how do you know it was me? It could have been one of those people." Sherlock stabs the photos strewn across the table.

"The date, obviously—the charge was put on the card days before the incident."

Now, finally, Mycroft has Sherlock where he wants him—on the back foot, a bit defensive and uncomfortable because it is so revealing that he is trying to hide his relationship. Time for Mycroft to up the ante: "Besides, Trevor himself rang here a few days before Christmas to thank you for the gift."

It had been a most extraordinary phone call, and Mycroft can only regret that at the time he didn't know what the investigations would turn up. Whatever he had thought about Victor Trevor as they'd first met when Sherlock had been admitted for the dog bite, the fact that the boy had the temerity to telephone was interesting.

Sherlock's eyes widen. "And you didn't think to let me take the call? What did he say? You didn't tell him about me being beaten up, did you?"

That's the confirmation Mycroft had feared: it is, indeed, this Trevor boy who is behind the reluctance to go to the police. Sherlock's outrage has quickly been extinguished by a desperate need to know, because he wants to keep Victor from finding out about the assault, almost as much as he must want to find out about the boy's reaction to his present.

Mycroft snorts. "You were out of the house, on one of your little _let's-avoid-everyone-and-everything_ moods."

"But you didn't tell me he'd called, or even bother to pass on a message!" Sherlock insists angrily.

"No. Not while my people were still investigating the circumstances around your assault. For all I knew, he could have been in on it."

" _He wasn't_!" Sherlock protests, making it sound as though it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"You are very loyal, very fast. You know I hate repeating myself. What is your relationship with Victor Trevor?"

"He's a friend."

"A… _friend_. What sort of friend? Are you having sexual relations with him?"

Sherlock's eyes widen. "No. Not that my sex life is any business of yours."

So, they've reached the crux of the conversation. At last—a confession that his brother actually thinks he has what could be described as a sex life and which he'd rather keep secret.

Mycroft needs to handle this as delicately as he possibly can. "Actually, it is, since it is my duty to protect you." It has always been Mycroft's job to do this. It's not one he's particularly welcomed, it has to be said, but he knows that if he doesn't look out for Sherlock's best interests, then no one will.

"Protect me? From sex?" Sherlock scoffs.

For a moment, Mycroft is transported back to the moment when he'd first opened the envelope containing the photographs of the then seventeen-year old Sherlock being sexually abused, and the horrific train of events that had led him to become a drug addict hiding on the streets. For years, Ford has been using the associated material to pressure Mycroft into supporting him and his policies, no matter how ruinous they are for the country's security. But, to say any of this to Sherlock would be lighting a fuse that would lead him to the explosive truth—that he has a half-brother who would like nothing better than to end his existence.

Mycroft's best strategy remains to revert to what Sherlock knows he knows. "As you once told me, cocaine is expensive. I am aware that you are not a virgin, but unfortunately your prior experiences have been transactional and abusive. The fact of the gender of those perpetrators is no true indication of your orientation; most dealers simply happen to be men. Have you ever had sex with a woman?"

"No." Sherlock looks downright scandalised.

"Lack of opportunity is not the same as lack of interest, Sherlock. Have you any real understanding of which direction it is that your sexual impulses are driving you?"

"Mycroft, stop this! It's none of your bloody business!"

While Sherlock is glaring daggers at him, there _is_ a tiny trace of plea buried in that bluster, which Mycroft hears loud and clear. "It _is_ my business, when your failure to control your own urges or to recognise the threat implied in the behaviour of others ends up with you in hospital. Clearly, the fiancée thought you were a significant threat. And, the fact that she took revenge in quite so damaging a way is indicative of her strength of feeling about said threat." He taps the trophy photo.

Sherlock waves his hand dismissively. "They broke off their engagement weeks ago."

"Why?"

His brother looks bewildered. "How should I know? I couldn't tell you why the two of them would have ever ended up engaged in the first place, so asking me what made them change their minds is pointless."

"Sherlock, has Trevor made any sexual advances to you?"

" _No_!"

He sounds mortified by the idea, but Mycroft knows his brother is a skilful actor when he wants to be. He can't tell for certain whether this is an outright lie, so he has to probe deeper. If advances have been made, and they were unwanted, why would Sherlock be protecting the man? To preserve a troubled friendship because it's the only one he's got?

Or, because those advances _would_ have been welcome, but they have not happened? _"_ Victor Trevor spends a lot of evenings alone with you at the Chemistry Lab. That's odd behaviour for a Land Economy student," Mycroft points out, keeping his tone deliberately neutral and thoughtful.

Sherlock crosses his arms defensively. "He's been helping me catch up on the lab work for the project—the stuff I missed by being off after the Achilles tendon thing."

"Why would he agree to do this? I doubt he has enough understanding of chemistry to be able to assist you in any meaningful manner."

"He felt guilty for letting the dog loose, for the fact that it bit me. He felt responsible. So, this was his way of… I don't know, sort of apologising for the whole thing."

"Why would he also offer you a room in his flat? What are his motives, brother mine, especially after you were recovered enough to walk to and from your college rooms?"

Sherlock looks indignant. "So I could continue my project over Christmas instead of having to waste that time here. The flat was going to be empty over the break."

Mycroft ignores the attempt at deflection and avoidance. "You moved in with him well before Trevor left Cambridge for the holidays, and stayed after his fiancée left, _before_ the Christmas break. Why?"

Silence. Has Sherlock run out of suitable excuses?

Mycroft sighs. "You know that you are not well equipped to understand what other people are thinking and feeling. Doctor Cohen told me that she's had the conversation with you, the one about how easy it is for someone to manipulate you, take advantage of you..."

Sherlock interrupts. "Victor is not like that. He is a good friend—kind, responsible. He's made a big difference to the project. I am grateful for his help."

"How grateful?"

"What does that even mean, Mycroft? What are you insinuating? Why are you asking these questions? He is a _friend_. I know you don't go in for that sort of thing, but this is the first time I've ever had a friend, and that's why I don't want any of this other… stuff to get in the way. None of it is important. It doesn't matter."

Mycroft deduces that Sherlock at least thinks he is telling the truth. Is he really so naïve?

"His fiancé broke their engagement because of you. And organised not one but two assaults against you. No smoke without fire, Sherlock. Are you attracted to him? Sexually?"

The boy's shocked silence speaks volumes. Mycroft's fears take a firmer hold.

Before he can ask the next question, though, Sherlock shakes his head and shoves all of the photographs into a neat pile, reaches across the table to stuff them back in the manila folder. "I'm not doing this. Not answering your questions, not playing your games. Victor is not interested in that sort of relationship. We are just friends. I don't want him to know about any of this."

Mycroft rolls his eyes. Does Sherlock take him for an idiot? "Too late, brother mine."

"You _bastard!_ You've told him!?" Sherlock stands up so fast the chair rocks a bit on its hind legs.

"Calm down—not guilty. I didn't share any of my suspicions with him, nor did I tell him the results of my investigation. He phoned here on Boxing Day to say that he had just learned that you had been assaulted on the night of the Varsity Match. He wanted to speak to you, to find out how you were. I told him that your injuries were not severe. I doubt that ended his curiosity about the motivation for the attack, or the culprits."

Eyes blazing with rage, Sherlock spits out, "I was here—all Boxing Day—why didn't you let me talk to him?"

 _Oh, Sherlock_. The boy's reaction speaks volumes and tells Mycroft that the barely uncontained sentiment emanating from him is going to make this all the more difficult to manage. While Mycroft does now have the answers to the questions he needed, he has absolutely no idea how to stop the impending disaster. He knows Sherlock too well to believe that he would see sense and comply with any of the advice given. "I did it for your own good. Whatever is going on between you two, it has proven to be rather toxic. It would be best if you severed this relationship and refrained from even speaking to one another. I advised him as much. Make an end of it, Sherlock."

Sherlock gets up and walks out of the room without a word.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

*Little does he know! The story of what really happened on that internship is told in my story, _Magpie: One for Sorrow,_ Chapter 14.

**For the story of "The Other One", which in my universe (written well before Eurus) is a half- brother called Fitzroy Ford, see Ex Files the chapter entitled Extrapolate where we meet Ford for the first time and Extort. For what happens to lead to the blackmail material, see Periodic Tales, Sodium (chapters 40 and 41 on FF) Potassium (on FF. Chapters 42-46), Holmium, chapters 32-34, Krypton Chapters 48 and 50, Plutonium. For the story AFTER the year 2001 here in Extricate, see Ex Files Exorcism Chapter 50. And then pick up the story in Magpie: Two for Joy, which I will be posting very shortly indeed.

***The Cambridge University Constabulary is real, as is the Proctorial Notice on Discipline: "5. No member of the University shall intentionally or recklessly endanger the safety, health, or property of any member, officer, or employee of the University within the Precincts of the University. 6. No member of the University shall engage in harassment of: (i) a member, officer, or employee of the University or a College; or (ii) any person where the harassment takes place either within the Precincts of the University or in the course of a University or College activity. (b) Harassment shall include single or repeated incidents involving unwanted and unwarranted conduct towards another person which is reasonably likely to have the effect of (i) violating that other's dignity or (ii) creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment for that other."


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21: Resolutions

Chapter Text

It's only a quarter past ten on a Sunday night, but already the place is heaving with people. For the annual New Year's Eve party that Jack Trevor puts on for AFE employees and their families, the tractor showroom has had a make-over: the walls are dressed in white silk and sparkling fairy lights and a disco ball hanging from the rafters. After the dancing, the lights are due to go down at five to midnight and the radio will be turned on so the chimes of Big Ben can be heard, bringing in 2001. After the ritual shouts of _Happy New Year_ and kissing, everyone will troop out to watch a twenty-minute firework display.

Over the past few years, this annual fixture is the one Yuletide event that Victor has minded less, if only because it's not full of the great and good that Jack Trevor wants him to network with. His father leaves him alone at this party, which suits his mood tonight. As he comes through the door and moves his way through the crowd, Victor knows that with a Christmas bonus in their pockets, the revellers are going to be in a celebratory mood. There will be no millennium bug to worry about; Y2K is a distant memory, and AFE is doing good business.

As he acknowledges the greetings of those AFE employees who know him, Victor moves away from the entrance and into the throng. Even though the night is still young, he can hear how alcohol is lubricating the conversations. Jack Trevor's parties are appreciated by the workforce because of the free bar, free food, and good music. Victor knows that half the vehicles in the carpark will still be there in the morning; their owners will have taken advantage of the fleet of taxis and minivans that his father lays on to get those over the limit home safely. Victor could do with a drink himself, but on the left, the bar is four deep in men, downing the free Adnam's beer with abandon. The wives are on the right of the dance floor, nibbling on the party food, staking a claim to one of the tiny tables, and catching up on the gossip. Every underage teenage girl for thirty miles must have been booked as a baby sitter for tonight, and the wives are dressed to the nines.

Chloe had always sneered at their dresses. "Not a designer label in sight; half these women are wearing _Primark_."

The spot-lit dance floor is three quarter's full, mostly older folks who will be recalling their youth as they gyrate to a medley of Saturday Night Fever songs.

This year, Victor is content to lurk in the background, off the dance floor. Previously, he's had to squire Chloe as she took to the floor with abandon. Tonight, he plans to leave well before midnight and walk back to Colton Grange. He's not in the mood to party.

Someone comes up behind him and puts a hand on his arm. "Hey, Coz; how's it going?"

No need to turn to recognise who has been so familiar; Simon Spencer is his only cousin in the world—a distant second cousin, to be precise. Victor is laughing by the time the sight of a familiar tall brown-haired man in his late thirties comes into view. "Last time I looked, Simon, you weren't an AFE employee. Don't tell me Dad has finally seduced you into joining the family firm?"

His laugh is matched. "No way, Coz. You country bumpkins couldn't afford me. I'm officially gate-crashing." He has a tall gorgeous brunette on his arm; her evening dress is way too glamorous for the rest of the room. Definitely not Primark.

Simon introduces her, "We're on our way to a client do in Norwich, and I thought I'd stop in to say hello. This is Bryony Stemple, my latest acquisition."

She rolls her eyes, and comes close enough to Victor to be heard over the music. "Simon's in M can you tell?"

Victor nods; he knows his relation is something in the City. They have in common a grandmother and her sister who had lived in Australia and whom neither Victor nor Simon had ever met because the women had died well before theywere born. Simon and his dad Peter are the only blood relations of his mother's family that his father has ever been willing to have contact with.

"Where's Chloe?" Simon asks.

Victor pulls a face. "Elsewhere; family duty and all that." He's already answered this question so many times this Christmas that the lie rolls off his tongue with ease.

Simon puts a hand on Bryony's elegant shoulder and leans in closer to her ear. "Why don't you find the handsomest man in this crowd for a dance, while Victor and I have a chat outside? I could do with a cig."

She puts on a mock pout. "But, Simon, you're keeping the handsomest man here with you," she then winks at Victor, who can't help but blush a bit. She's a decade older than him, a sophisticated sight amidst the country folk, and it just makes him feel odd that she would tease him like this.

Simon rolls his eyes in mock horror. "Down, girl! No cradle-snatching. Anyway, this one's already taken."

He takes Victor's arm and steers him back out the entrance and into the cold darkness of the carpark. There's an area roped off, with a large umbrella over it in case of rain, as well as one of those gas-powered heaters. His dad thinks of everything, including how to keep the crowd of smokers warm and content.

Simon takes him in a different direction. "Need some privacy, mate."

Leaning up against the metal side of the showroom building, he fishes a packet and lighter out of his pocket and gives Victor a knowing grin. "Hey, just wanted a chance to tell you to put something onto your calendar. The weekend before your birthday in Feb. You'll be twenty-one, and it's time to celebrate."

Victor grimaces. "I know; my dad's already working on the party."

Simon lights up his cigarette and takes a deep drag at it. "Want one?"

Victor shakes his head.

"I know that family things are a drag, so I thought I'd give you a little heads-up. According to the _Save the Date_ email I got from your Dad in November the Seaman clan is going to be there, and they're going to announce that they've got the wedding date sorted and the venue: Norwich Cathedral, the bloody bishop himself officiating. I was told to keep it quiet, supposed to be a surprise and all that, but I thought you had a right to know, if Chloe hasn't already told you."

Bloody typical that his dad has sent out such an announcement without even mentioning it to him. _Arranged marriage indeed._ Victor knows none of that will be actually happening, now, but he keeps quiet: this is the last time and place for any revelations. He just shakes his head.

Simon continues, "So, the weekend before you're all mine. You and your significant other are coming to London on Friday night to be my guest, and staying at my flat in Canary Wharf until Monday afternoon. You can call it a private stag and hen party just for you two if you want; my treat. I'll meet you at Liverpool Street station at eight p.m. "

Victor is slightly taken aback by the offer. "What have you got planned?"

"It's a surprise, Coz, which means you'll find out on the night. Don't dress like a slob, but it's not formal. This is about having some _proper Cityfun._ "

Simon finishes his cigarette and they both return to the showroom, where Simon rescues Bryony from the attentions of Victor's dad and they leave for their other party.

As ten thirty comes up on the big digital clock on the back wall of the stage, the DJ shouts into the microphone: "And heeeere's to the Ninety Eighties!" Every half hour, the music moves into the next decade until the last dance before midnight, which is traditionally the Christmas number one. Victor wouldn't be surprised if Bob The Builder's _We Can Fix It_ turns out to be a hit with this crowd. Agricultural machinery involves a lot of engineers.

He lingers by the edge of the dancefloor, deep in thought, until the next song comes on. A bongo, synthesizer and drum intro starts pumping out; it's the start of Lionel Ritchie's _All Night Long_ —one of Jack Trevor's favourites. He'll soon be out there somewhere on the floor, enjoying the 'knees up', as he's always called this works party. The mellow Caribbean accented voice of Ritchie's starts: " _Well, my friends, the time has come to raise the roof and have some fun…_ "

As opposed to the esteemed Mister Ritchie, Victor's not enjoying himself. His mood is strange—unsettled and anxious; seeing Simon has set off an odd train of thought. A year ago, this party had been the venue where his dad had announced Victor's formal engagement to Chloe. _What a difference a year makes_. For the first time in his life, he feels free of the predictable course, the one that had been set for him for as long as he can remember. His father's game-plan for his future—public school, rugby, a good university, marriage, taking a job with AFE, running the company when Jack wanted to retire—seems to be slowly derailing without Victor remembering making all that many conscious decisions to enforce the change.

Funny, how a small thing could set such a cataclysmic shift into motion. A chance encounter with Sherlock is where it had all sort of begun–– Victor still hasn't told his father the truth about what happened when he met Chloe in Chelmsford. In fact, he's lied, saying that he and Chloe agreed that doing this over the holidays is just too claustrophobic; family breathing down their necks isn't helping matters. He's told his father that he and Chloe will talk again when they get back to Cambridge.

Lying to Dad is definitely new. Victor's not been the sort to do that in the past, because he's not had a reason to deceive his father; they had been close before, at least in the way that Jack Trevor is capable of being close with anyone. For him, fatherhood is all about micromanagement and a sheltered path towards the life of leisure he had never gotten. But, all Victor wants now is a bit of breathing space and time to make some important decisions. Though lying makes him feel like a coward, he decides that he owes it to himself to take the opportunity the lie brings to re-think where he is headed, and why.

Ending the engagement is just the beginning. He is thinking more and more about life after graduation, and the fact that he doesn't want to work for his father, nor does he want to see a position as some assistant to an Estate Manager for one of the county's big landowners. He's not sure which is going to upset his father more: being told that the wedding is definitely off for good, or that Victor wants to go onto graduate school to do an MBA so he can forge his own future. He knows both will break his father's heart.

But, it's _his_ life, not his dad's. He doesn't want to spend the rest of his life doing work he doesn't like, being married to a woman he hates, forced to be around people he can't respect. And agriculture bores him. Over the past two weeks, he's thought long and hard about starting his own business in something hi-tech. Maybe even biotech. His work with Sherlock this term has opened his eyes to what possibilities might be there. The two of them have a chemistry that seems to bring out the best in both; maybe they could start something special together? That genome sequencing thing looks like it's going to be really, really big. Sherlock's clearly not interested in business, but even his Professor thinks he's a genius. He could sort out the science bit, and Victor could be the face of the company. It would be a whole different future, helping to bring Sherlock's extraordinary brilliance out of the lab and into the real world.

The thought of makes Victor smile. It could be _fun_ , which is not a word he would have ever associated with his future before.

He'd been so relieved to hear from Mycroft Holmes that Sherlock's injuries were not serious and that he would heal. By showing Victor those photos, Chloe had not only destroyed any chance of him wanting to be in the same room as her again, she'd also made Victor realise how important Sherlock has become to him. He does worry what Sherlock thinks of him, now—surely he doesn't suspect that Victor had anything at all to do with the attack?

The DJ has just put on another track; this one's Diana Ross singing _Upside Down_ and Victor nearly laughs at the chorus, as it belts out over the dancers:

 _Upside down_  
Boy, you turn me  
Inside out  
And round and round  
Upside down  
Boy, you turn me  
Inside out  
And round and round

That just about sums it all up. If Bullseye hadn't bitten Sherlock, Victor would still be marching blindly into a future he actually loathes. If it hadn't been for Sherlock, he'd have never realised how much he wanted to break free and make his own way. Because of their friendship, Victor is facing the unknown future with excitement instead of feeling paralysed. Because of that boy, his whole world has truly been turned upside down.

But, on top of all the excitement, there is a layer of anxiety. He knows that a future that has Sherlock in it will never come to fruition if he decides that Victor isn't worth it; that he'd paid a heavy enough price to just be around him since Bullseye bit him, not to mention having been beat up like that. Mycroft Holmes is clearly determined to be an obstacle to their continued friendship. Victor finds himself praying that Sherlock will be at least willing to see him again. He has to find out whether Sherlock can ever forgive him for what has happened as a result of Chloe's horrible plot. Wracked with guilt that he had not told Sherlock about Chloe being behind the Rag Week prank, Victor has no idea whether that knowledge would have changed anything, but he knows he should have told the truth, the _whole_ truth. Sherlock deserves as much, since he has been nothing but totally honest during the time they've known each other.

Victor's New Year's Resolution is therefore simple: to do everything he can to see Sherlock again. He's become a better person because of their friendship, and he wants Sherlock to feel the same. He needs to tell him how important he has become to him, to his future.

He makes another resolution. Whatever happens, he's going to apply to the university's Judge Institute for Management Studies. It's got a one-year MBA course which will keep him in Cambridge for the next year, while Sherlock completes hisdegree. Maybe, just _maybe_ that will buy him the time to convince Sherlock that his friendship is worth it, and that their relationship means as much to Sherlock as it does to Victor. After that, the world will be their oyster, regardless of whatever the hell that brother of his has to say about it. Surely Sherlock would be as keen to break free from such a busybody as Victor is to stop living under his dad's thumb.

Victor is smiling as he joins the queue for the bar.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Just a bit over one hundred and seventy-five miles to the south and slightly west of Colton, the clock on the wall beside the Aga in Frank Wallace's kitchen ticks over to eleven fifteen.

" _Och,_ _bother_ ; it's another bitch."

There's only one light on in the tiny cottage's kitchen, but it's enough to see what needs to be seen. Frank takes the newly born black Labrador he's just upended and hands it over to Sherlock, who is waiting with an old towel. His job is to wipe dry the wet puppy that Frank has just freed from the thin membrane. He'd watched as the gamekeeper used an old wash cloth to break the sac around the pup's head and wipe the nose and eyes gently.

It's the third female in a row, and Frank seems perturbed by that fact. Inca, the mother, is panting from the exertion, and she's content to let them help.

"It's breathing!" Sherlock, sitting on a cushion on the floor alongside the whelping bed, announces excitedly. Drying the puppies while they are still attached by the umbilical cord is challenging; he has to be careful not to pull on the cord, or it could cause internal injuries. But, he also has to rub vigorously enough to be a good substitute for the mother's licking. It's that stimulation that gives a kick start to their first breath.

Frank takes the now wriggling puppy back and offers it to the mother, seeing if she will bite the link to the placenta. When she doesn't react, he mutters quietly, "Aye, why do it yourself when you've got me, eh Inca? You've always been a lazy one." He puts the puppy tummy-side up in the towel in his lap, takes two lengths of white cotton thread from the spool on the chair, and ties the first one about an inch from the pup's belly and the second one about a quarter of an inch further along. He then picks up the scissors from the little pan of disinfectant and snips between the two lengths, before gently applying more antiseptic to the length of cord attached to the puppy.

"How many puppies have you delivered?"

A gentle laugh from the Scotsman; "Don't rightly know. Probably a hundred by now but I've lost count. Occupational hazard. Here you go." He hands the third tiny black bundle to Sherlock who lines it up next to the other two, snuggled up to their mother's chest.

"Now we wait for the next one." Frank gets up and puts the kettle on. The radio in the kitchen is on, tuned into BBC Radio Three, but it's at a low volume, designed to provide a soothing background sound for the dogs. Frank turns it up a bit and then goes over to the kitchen table to resume his seat in an old battered chair. Sherlock can see teeth marks on the legs at the bottom. The gamekeeper's cottage is redolent of dogs. The scent doesn't bother Sherlock; it's one of the things he likes about being here. The mild aroma of the birth fluids isn't off-putting either, just earthy and warm.

"You're sure you don't want something a wee stronger than a cup of tea? A lad your age should be drinking in the New Year."

"I don't like alcohol. Never have. It seems pointless."

Frank gives him a look, that makes Sherlock feel a bit uncomfortable, before the Scotsman says, "Aye. The way I've heard it, you go in for other kinds of stimulants."

It isn't the heat in the kitchen that makes Sherlock go a bit red in the face. "Not anymore." Lucky for him, Frank has turned away to take the kettle off the Aga and fill up the teapot.

"I'm not judging, laddie. I expect his lordship does enough of that."

Sherlock snorts an agreement.

"Anyroad, it's good to see you again. It's been too long since you were down. It makes me think you've forgotten us here."

"It's not you. This place is full of ghosts; too many bad memories. And, Mycroft getting to play Lord of the Manor just makes him even more insufferable."

"Can I tempt you to join the guns on Wednesday? There's a space; the Metropolitan Police Commissioner's cried off; in bed with the flu."

Sherlock shakes his head. "No, I need to get back to Cambridge. The labs re-open on Tuesday."

"Shame, it would have been good to see you put the Purdeys back into use. Well, I'm just glad you're willing to see the New Year in by helping me play midwife. It's a case of bad timing on Inca's part; getting between a Scot and his Hogmanay is not a good idea."

"How many puppies do you think she'll have?"

"Well. Hard to say. Her last litter was a full house: eight pups for eight teats. It's a struggle if they're more, someone always loses out. Glencoe is a good Parham stud; his last mating produced eight when he was bred to the Earl of Pembroke's best bitch. But I trust my hands; when I have a feel around I guess it's going to be five or six in all."

"Why did you say _bother_ that Inca has had three bitches? Have you got something against them?"

"Well, his lordship has always been one for the dogs rather than the bitches. He thinks they work better. I agree; males don't get distracted by hormones and motherhood. Your brother keeps a close eye on the Parham Praetor pedigree breeding pool."

"Is that why half of the bitches here at Parham are spayed? And you only keep a two stud dogs. Do they work better if they are castrated?"

"Neutered's the word, Sherlock."

Sherlock snorts. "Same thing."

"Aye, I suppose it is. An intact male dog is always a handful. No one wants a dog on a peg or in a beating line, spoiling for a fight."

The tea has had time to brew, so Frank pours it from the pot into two chipped mugs and plops one down in front of Sherlock.

Once he's seated again, Frank pushes the plate of Mrs Walter's ginger nuts closer to Sherlock. "Now we've got at least a half hour to kill, so you're going to tell me what's bothering you."

Sherlock avoids looking at the gamekeeper, hiding behind his mug of tea as he takes a big swallow. It burns as it goes down, so he stuffs a ginger nut in to put out the fire. When he can speak again, his reply is a bit bolshie: "Who says I have a problem, and even if I did, what concern is that of yours?"

Frank rubs the reddish stubble on his chin. "Well, on the one hand, you are entitled to privacy. On the other hand, I know whatever's troubling you is something that you'd carry to your grave rather than talk to your brother about, so all I'm saying is that I'm here, listening. And, whatever you say, you know will go no further than here."

It's true. Sherlock has always trusted Frank to keep his secrets. The gamekeeper's cottage has been a refuge all through his childhood. The man had taught Sherlock so much about nature, about the land, and he'd even been patient enough to teach Sherlock how to drive.

Maybe he should say something. Maybe this is a chance to get some idea if Mycroft really can be told to go to hell; Sherlock had fled the main house tonight after one of the most awkward conversations he's ever had with his brother. The idiot had persevered in delivering yet another excruciatingly embarrassing lecture about the perils of sex, and how Sherlock should avoid all romantic entanglements. Mycroft's theory remains that Sherlock's lack of social skills and communication will always get in the way of any relationship, platonic or otherwise, and that it is safer to avoid all such attempts to associate with others because he'd just end up being taken advantage of. ' _Alone protects you, Sherlock; never forget that_ ,' had been the predictable climax of the diatribe, paving way for the ending: an ultimatum that Sherlock is banned from having any further contact with Victor Trevor, as though he were a child who had befriended an unsuitable playmate.

Sherlock, of course, has a mind to do _exactly_ the opposite. Victor matters to him in a way that no one else has before.

But, Mycroft is not _always_ wrong. Sherlock hasn't been able to shake the niggling suspicion that his brother's prediction of disaster might come true. He has certainly never managed to get along with his peers. What if he is so inept that not even friendship can really be possible? He's never tried this hard at one before; is he really doomed to fail?

Frank is watching him as he sips his tea, looking as open and kind as always, but how on earth could he talk about this even with the gamekeeper he has trusted since he was a child? Would he be shocked to discover that Sherlock is not a virgin? That he'd traded sex for drugs on the streets? Will telling him anything disgust the Scot? Sherlock hasn't got the first idea of how normal people do this.

He decides to start rather obliquely: "Why have you never married? Don't you like sex?"

The question clearly surprises Frank, but he doesn't dismiss it the way other people would, doesn't look embarrassed or disapproving. That's one of the things that Sherlock likes about him.

"The one doesn't have to go with the other. But, the easiest answer is that the right person hasn't come along, which has to do with the fact that living and working the way I do is not the sort of life a lot of people would want." The man purses his lips in thought. "Mind you, even if that person had come along, the sex was not likely to end in a marriage. Not in this country anyway. Still illegal."

 _Oh._ Sherlock is shocked. Wallace has just confessed to being gay!? That is so _surprising_. Sherlock has never even considered the possibility, and he wonders if others living on the Estate have; whether it's obvious to others the way a lot of other things are which elude him completely. After the surprise subsides, he's relieved; this means it won't be impossible to admit to his own experiences.

Looking down at the table rather than meeting the gamekeeper's eyes, Sherlock manages to stutter out, "Um… does that mean… you… uh, prefer human males as much as you do male dogs?"

Frank nearly chokes on a mouthful of tea, he laughs so abruptly. After the coughing dies down, he wheezes, "No, Sherlock; I don't compare my dogs to my sex partners."

"That's not what I meant!" he protests indignantly. He doesn't like being laughed at, even if it's just Frank.

The gamekeeper has still got tears of laughter in his eyes. "I know, laddie. It's just how it came out."

Embarrassed, Sherlock thinks he is going to have to give up trying to make himself understood. He should probably leave.

But, Frank then smiles and says, "The answer to the question that you meant to ask is 'yes'; I do prefer men to women. Not that I actually _do_ much about it these days. I'm an old man, you know."

Sherlock has never thought of Frank as being old or young; he just _is._ Like a rock, he's always been there—always been right _here_ —and always will be.

He decides he can try again. "I think Mycroft would prefer to castrate me if he had his way."

Now, Frank's eyes do widen. "Och, laddie. Is this what you're fasht aboot? Dinna fret; they've not got a law that says you can't enjoy yourself and explore with someone what's under the kilt. Whatever your brother says, it's been legal here in the UK since 1967 even if ye can't marry. And attitudes are improving; just now the Parliament said that gays can serve in the armed forces."

"I don't think Mycroft sees that as the core of the problem. He thinks that I should avoid _everything—_ even friendship, in whatever form. He says I am not able to look after myself; that I will make a mess of everything and end up being used, or even abused."

"Is this about the boy who called here?"

Sherlock can't hide his astonishment. "How do you know about that?"

Frank gives him a conspiratorial smile. "You probably dinna realise that when your brother got his latest promotion, he unlisted the phone numbers for Parham and the town house. But, your friend is a wee bit clever; he got through on the number I use for RSVPing the shoot invitations. He sounded like a nice lad; I put him through to the house. Did you nay get a chance to speak with him?"

Sherlock huffs, fingers curling around his tea mug in anger. "Mycroft intercepted it so no, I didn't get a chance to talk to him. Mycroft didn't even tell me that Victor had called until days later!"

"Are you thinking this boy may be more than a friend?"

"Yes. No. I don't know. He's not likely to be interested in that with me. He's just ended his engagement with a girl, so I think it's clear what his preferences are."

Putting his empty mug down, Frank nods. "Maybe… maybe not. It's possible he swings both ways. Don't make assumptions unless you're really sure. Lots of blokes don't want to admit the truth and end up with girlfriends; it's an easier life that way."

"That's the problem. If I do or say anything, he might get freaked out about me and not be willing to be my friend anymore. That's more important to me than the other stuff." Sherlock shoves the plate of biscuits aside, angrily. "Anyway, all of this is pointless, since Mycroft is on the warpath now, and has told me that he will stop Victor from having any further contact with me. He holds him responsible for me being mugged, even though it was his fiancée that organised that."

Frank sighs. "Well, to be expected, I suppose, if he thinks that your friend is involved in some way. He's been looking after you since you were a wee thing. So protective, worries himself sick about you. And, to be honest, you haven't been the easiest one to look after. That disappearing act of yours from Harrow got us all so worried; Mrs Waters was beside herself. Why'd you do that, Sherlock? Running away, sleeping rough on the streets of London just scared us all so terribly. I kept hoping you'd at least call me, give some sign that you were still alive even if you didn't want to speak to his lordship. You know that if anything happens, you've always got me."

Sherlock can't meet his gaze; he looks away, down at Inca, who is shifting a bit on the old blankets. He watches closely to make sure that the puppies aren't squashed.

Frank continues, "All his lordship would say is that you were eventually found, and that you were put in a clinic for some time. It was a shame that you didn't come down to Parham when you got out."

"He kept me under virtual house arrest in London, and I didn't see the point of swapping prisons. Anyway, that's the past. This is now… and I think there's another puppy on the way."

Frank stands up to take a peek at the whelping bed. "Could just be the placenta of the last one coming. Or maybe it _is_ a pup." He takes the cushion off the wooden chair and drops it on the floor before sitting down next to the bed. "Aye, you're right. She's started labour again."

They keep watch over Inca until midnight; when the fourth stroke of Big Ben tolls, the next puppy arrives.

Frank starts laughing. "Great timing, girl." But, as he pulls the little bundle with its cord away from the bitch's rear end, his grin fades. "Damn, it's a choccie. Now, that's a shame." Then he groans, "… and it's another bitch."

Sherlock is on his knees, holding another soft towel to receive the puppy. He rubs the sac off and then briskly strokes the short, wet fur. When he opens the towel to see if it's breathing, he's relieved to see its mouth is open. "She's okay."

Then, he realises what Frank meant. This one has light brown fur. "Why is being brown even worse than being a female?"

"Your brother won't have a chocolate lab on his shoots. Says they are manic, uncontrollable."

"That's ridiculous. Why should the colour of her fur matter to how her brain works?"

"It's a double recessive gene. In the Parham pedigree line, he's determined to breed it out. He'll be sure to give this one away."

"Just because she's different…? That's _awful_. So typical of him!"

"Don't take it to heart, Sherlock."

Frank offers the little bundle to Inca, who does manage to give her a few licks and then to bite the cord. Sherlock lifts the puppy away, but instead of putting her alongside her sisters, he holds her up closer to his face, so he can really look at her. At this stage, they look almost like little rats. It's hard to imagine that in a matter of weeks, this will be a puppy running all over the place. Her nose is squashed up and the ears are tiny just like the other ones'. But, she is undeniably different; her brown fur is the colour of milk chocolate.

"I want her. She's going to be _mine._ Don't let Mycroft give her away."

"Sherlock, you're at uni now."

"I'll be back in the summer. She'll be ready to start training then. You can keep an eye on her, can't you?"

"Your brother won't be happy."

"No, but I will be. Regardless of what name you have to give her on the pedigree papers when she's registered, her name is Bella."


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter Twenty-Two Anticipation**

* * *

It's the 6th of January. Sherlock has been awake for the past four hours, staring at the ceiling of a horrid B&B on Tennison Road, a twelve-minute walk from the Chemistry Lab. His mood is foul: frustration wars with depression.

He _hates_ his birthday—for the past decade, anyway—because it always reminds him of what he's lost. It brings back horrible memories, things he tries very, very hard to forget. Among them is the fact that his mother died four days after his tenth birthday. Mycroft has always argued that an eidetic memory like Sherlock's is the root of his genius, but for Sherlock it means he can't delete the things he would rather forget.

Twelfth Night, the Epiphany, the official end to the Christmas holidays—the sixth of January is supposed to be a celebration. The only thing that has ever attracted him to that date is the medieval tradition of appointing a child as the 'Lord of Misrule' to preside over a 'Feast of Fools'. Frank Wallace had told him the story, although in Scotland the child was called the 'Abbot of Unreason'. In his younger days, Sherlock had liked that idea. Of course, his father had never permitted such a thing. After his mother's death, Sherlock never celebrated his birthday again; for him the whole holiday period was tainted.

This year is worse than average. Not only does he have to put up with the aches and pains of his injuries but at Parham the Christmas dinner had been served with yet another torrent of endless big-brotherly nagging. This time, it had been all about the dangers of him trying to make friends, the risks of being taken advantage of, the perils of social interactions that end up with him being beaten and left unconscious in a dark alley. Instead of offering counsel, his brother had acted true to character and issued edicts.

How _dare_ Mycroft tell him who he can see and who he can't!

It's not as if Sherlock wants 'friends'. He doesn't; the idea is as alien to him as him being able to fly. But, he's not ready to give up on the one person who doesn't want to do all that socially acceptable silliness. Victor is _different_ : he accepts Sherlock for who he is. There's no need to playact being normal around the boy. Thanks to Mycroft's indiscretions at the hospital after the dog attack, Victor has already learned the worst about Sherlock, yet hasn't retreated. Mycroft hadn't spared his punches when selecting which hateful words to speak in Victor's presence: _vulnerable adult_ , _diminished capacity_ , and, worst of all, _autism_. Yet, those words had not chased Victor Trevor away.

Sherlock has been grateful for the time that the two of them had spent together in the autumn. He hadn't expected to enjoy Victor's company, to receive so much help in the lab, and least of all Victor's willingness to put up with Sherlock. He's almost certain they had both enjoyed talking about music, and Sherlock had not even minded learning something about rugby and what land economists actually do for a living. Apart from the sullen presence of Chloe, the room in Victor's flat had been an improvement on the taunts and irritations of living in a dormitory with the likes of Sebastian Wilkes. After she had left, it had been downright wonderful sharing the living space with Victor.

All that is about to end now, adding to Sherlock's depression.

Initially, he had been supposed to stay in Parham until the new term would start, but on New Year's Day he'd reached the point where, if Mycroft opened his mouth one more time, he'd sworn that he would leave Parham that instant and _walk_ back to Cambridge. For once, his brother must have realised that Sherlock wasn't bluffing. Mycroft had relented and told him that he could return to university, provided certain conditions were met. One of those is that he isn't allowed to return to the flat on Saxon Street. Instead, he is required to return to Burrell's Fields on the 17th when students are allowed back in. He also "isn't to contact Victor Trevor ever again. You will be watched, Sherlock. For your own protection," Mycroft had warned him.

Sherlock had argued that he didn't need a babysitter, and that it must be an abuse of public funds to have one of Mycroft's own people assigned to such a menial task. That's when Mycroft had informed him that he'd been promoted in the autumn to the second most senior post in the Securities & Liaison Service. As such, he was given personal protection, and so were his closest family members. "That means you, Sherlock."

Sherlock didn't bother to hide his derision. "Chloe Seaman is hardly a threat to national security, Mycroft. Whatever she gets up to is not your concern."

"When it involves GBH against you, it most certainly _is_ my concern. I worry about you constantly, Sherlock. Accept these conditions or you won't be going back tomorrow."

Sherlock had slammed Parham's front door so hard that Mrs Walters must have heard it in the East Wing. He had spent the night at the gamekeeper's cottage, seeking solace with the puppies. He'd got Wallace to drop him off at the Pulborough train station for the first train to London, at 06.35 the next morning.

He knows he doesn't have to comply with his brother's conditions, because they aren't even needed. Thanks to Mycroft's interference, it will be Victor who will invariably break off all further contact. _Why wouldn't he?_ Learning that Chloe had been behind the prank and then the assault had not really surprised Sherlock that much. He knew that she hated him; she'd said as much to Victor in a conversation that she must have known would be overheard.

Not that any of it matters, now. What _does_ matter is what Victor will think of him when he finds out about the disciplinary hearing that will end Chloe's time at university. It seems obvious that Sherlock is at least part of the reason why their engagement was broken off. Victor will blame him for ruining her future and, by extension, Victor's own plans for after university. Given the evidence that will be presented at the hearing tomorrow, and the fact that this is bound to drag Victor's name through the mud as well, Sherlock is sure that he will never speak to him again. When the rugby club authorities get back to work and find that at least two of their members have been involved in the mugging, this will be yet another nail in the coffin; the team captain won't be able to face his team mates if he isn't seen to be taking their side. That's what Sherlock assumes team mates are expected to do; back each other up, no matter what. Victor will hardly want to ruin his relationships with the Blues over someone like Sherlock.

No, Victor won't want anything further to do with Sherlock. All thanks to Mycroft. He has never quite hated his brother as much as when he found out that Victor had telephoned Parham twice, and that he'd been denied the chance to speak to him. It could have provided some closure; at least he would now have the memory of that last conversation to replay in his head. Now, there is nothing but loneliness.

He hears the first stirrings from the B&B kitchen downstairs, and knows he has a half hour to go before the Chemistry Lab opens. Wearily, he gets out of bed and prepares to face another day.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

The train shudders and clatters its way across two sets of points just outside Ely. For once, Victor has managed to catch the direct service from Norwich. In another twenty minutes he will be arriving at Cambridge's train station.

He is in a hurry to return to university, up to the point of having cut short his Christmas break. After the last bit of socialising his father had insisted on, Victor had given his excuses to his father and packed his bag. Even though it's only the 6th of January and classes won't start for another seventeen days, he can't stay at home any longer; there are things he needs to sort out. He offers his father the excuse that Chloe will be going back early, too. Victor doesn't tell him that the reason why she's going to be returning to Cambridge so soon is to face a disciplinary hearing. She'd texted him last night about the summons, and then phoned Colton Grange. Victor had let her rant and curse for almost two minutes before he'd said goodbye and hung up on her. He'd said nothing to his father about it; that bad news will have to wait until the panel decides her punishment. Maybe, once he knows the truth about Chloe, his father will stop singing her praises so much.

As the train rattles southwards, Victor resumes reading the article he had brought home with him, but not got around to yet. Written in 1983, Bruce Campbell's ' _Agricultural Progress in Medieval England: Some Evidence from Eastern Norfolk_ ' is hardly riveting reading, but he needs to complete it in order to draft a chapter of his dissertation due in the first week of the second term.

The middle-aged woman sitting across the table from him tutts, and he looks up from his reading to see why.

She slaps her magazine down in front of her husband. "George, I don't know what the world is coming to. This used to be a good magazine; now it's full of gossip and rubbish about TV stars and pop musicians I've never heard of. In my day you could always count on _Woman's Weekly_ to have some good recipes, affordable clothes rather than high fashions, and beauty tips that didn't make you look like some streetwalker."

George is clearly a long suffering, hen-pecked husband, practically flinching under the assault of his wife's tongue. "Whatever you say, my dear."

Victor can't help wondering what their story is. A marriage of convenience? Teenage sweethearts whose wide-eyed love had turned into stale habit when they'd grown apart as adults? Would this have been him and Chloe, forty or fifty years down the line?

The wife stabs at one of the photos. Being upside down from where he is sitting, Victor can only make out the picture of a young, scantily clothed female body.

"I mean, really… Why would anyone care about who she is having an affair with? The young people these days, they're always infatuated with someone or another."

There's that word again... ' _infatuated'_. Mycroft Holmes had thrown it at Victor when they'd spoken on the phone ten days ago, and it's been haunting him ever since. There had been something so derogatory in the tone the man had used that Victor had made a point of looking the word up in the dictionary:

 _'Adjective: passionate about, consumed with desire for, (greatly) enamoured of, very attracted to, devoted to, charmed by, captivated by, enchanted by, beguiled by, bewitched by, fascinated by, enraptured by, under the spell of, hypnotized by; smitten with, sweet on, keen on, gone on, mad about, wild about, crazy about, nuts about, potty about, stuck on, hung up on, turned on by, swept off one's feet by, bowled over by, carrying a torch for…'_

There was also the further implication that infatuation is a transitory thing, not capable of lasting. A frivolity. An indulgence.

 _Is_ he infatuated with Sherlock? Chloe had accused him of behaving like it and stated that people who didn't know him will draw the wrong conclusion. _'Besotted_ ' is the word she had used, which isn't too far from Mycroft Holmes' chosen expression.

But, neither of those characterisations is fair. If there weren't such rife rumours about Sherlock's sexuality, would anyone think that they're somehow involved beyond friendship? Victor is not gay. He has been surrounded by boys and young men in varying stages of undress in the rugby locker rooms and showers without feeling attracted to them.

But... he _did_ once have a serious crush on a boy when he was fourteen. No other word could describe it. He'd thought he might have gone crazy, given the amount of time he'd spent obsessing about Charles, and there was no denying the fact that the boy had been the star of Victor's earliest wanking fantasies. Terrified by his father's possible reaction, Victor had gone to his housemaster at Gresham's for advice; the man had said that it was just a case of propinquity. "Being in close contact with too many boys and not enough girls at a time when hormones are raging, it is not unheard of. You'll soon forget him; don't worry," the housemaster had told him.

In one way, the man had been right. Within eighteen months, Chloe arrived on the scene and that was that. She'd gone on the pill at seventeen and they'd had sex. Victor hadn't given a serious thought about any other girl for five years. Well, maybe the occasional peek to appreciate from afar. And if he's honest about it, it hasn't been just girls who have caught his eye. In their final school year before university, he'd learned more about the full range of sexual attractions, at least in theory, when Chloe had taken a psychology course and pronounced herself as _mostly_ heterosexual. She'd laughed, saying "You know me and my girls. Couldn't live without them." Victor remembers her explaining about the Kinsey scale and how rare it might be for people to be at either extreme end of it. Some of those things she'd told him had downright shocked Victor because he has tried to shove them out of his life. He had sneaked a look at a test Chloe had filled out for that psychology course only to discover he was much more in the middle between the two extremes than she was.

But, none of that matters, because his friendship with Sherlock isn't like that. He hadn't ended his relationship with Chloe because of Sherlock; he had ended it because she is spoiled, manipulative, and a cruel, vengeful bully. He had suddenly been able to stop deceiving himself about the sort of person she'd grown up to be.

So, what kind of a man has _he_ grown into?

Over the Christmas break, he's realised that he hates the person she was trying to make him into. And he's not all that happy about his father's ideas about his future either.

Victor has decided that all that is going to change. From now on, he will make his own friendships and his own decisions. He is... _drawn_ to Sherlock. Perhaps 'captivated' and 'fascinated' by the boy are also applicable expressions. Certainly he has never met anyone like him before, and the chain of events set off by Bullseye's bite has led him to see the future differently, with more optimism than he has for years. Most of that _is_ due to Sherlock, who just may be the first and only true friend Victor has made at university. Everyone else had been part of Chloe's circle or just came with rugby or his classmates on the Land Economy course. Before Sherlock, Victor had never really had to work at becoming someone's friend; it all just happened easily to him. Maybe that's been part of the problem _;_ circumstantial contacts declared themselves to be friends and it all stayed superficial and comfortable. When some of them fell off his social calendar, he never missed them. _Easy come, easy go._

It has required considerable effort to get to know Sherlock, to understand him, to encourage him out of his shell of isolation into giving Victor a chance. Through Sherlock, he has come into contact with lots of new things, things he hasn't been exposed to before. It's not just the chemistry and the music—it's also the kind of energy and focus that drive Sherlock forward. Finding out what makes the boy tick has been intriguing; he doesn't do things because they are expected of him or someone thinks they'd be a good use of his time; he does them simply because he wants to. This has led Victor himself to consider his own motivations. Without Sherlock, he doubts he would have realised that he's better than what his father thinks he is, that he's more than what Chloe had wanted him to be. He's been stuck in idle for years.

Out of everything connected to Sherlock, the thing Victor would have least expected is how protective he's become of his friend. As much as Sherlock would prefer to just be left alone, other people seem to have a hard time ignoring him—there's something that rubs them up the wrong way. The taunts of the other lab users and the Trinity snobs, the prank, and now the horrible assault: all of it is so unfair and cruel that it makes Victor's blood boil in anger.

A glance out of the train window shows him the village of Waterbeach. The train rattles through its tiny station at speed; it's only the slow commuter trains that would stop here. Victor knows he has about six minutes before the train will enter the suburbs of Cambridge.

Will Sherlock have recovered enough to return to university once the term starts? What will Victor find once he gets back? Mycroft Holmes said that Sherlock had not been badly hurt; will his being mugged have changed his willingness to stay at the flat with Victor? Had he even been planning to do so after the term break in the first place? Has Mycroft told Sherlock that Chloe had been behind the assault? Knowing that, will Sherlock still want to be Victor's friend, or could his brother have done or said something to make him stay away for good?

These questions have been rattling around and around his head for the past ten days, ever since his abortive phone call to Parham. Yes, damn it—he _is_ obsessed! But, not in a bad way; this is a friendship that has to be good for both of them. Now that Chloe is out of the picture, Victor is determined to make a fresh start, and he wants Sherlock to be a part of that. It's exhilarating, and just a bit terrifying.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Sherlock is concentrating hard on the timing of the second heat shock. It's imperative to get this next temperature shift to move up twenty degrees centigrade within thirty seconds, and the equipment has not been co-operating. This is his third attempt this afternoon; the first two had taken too long to fit the parameters of the protocol, meaning he had to start all over again.

Part of the reason must be because the room itself is too cold for comfort. Not his own; he doesn't give a damn, just puts on another pullover under his coat and carries on. If the equipment is cold, however, it slows the speed of the heating element. The building's central heat must have been turned off when it was closed for the eight days between Christmas Eve and New Year's Day. When he'd complained to the security guard—a useless idiot providing holiday cover—Sherlock had learned that the building's heating is being turned off overnight, too.

"Why would they bother to heat the place? No one's here," the guard had explained.

"My experiment is here," Sherlock had retorted. "Diurnal temperature changes slow everything up. Don't you know that's the reason why the building is normally heated twenty-four hours a day? And why on earth does the lab have to close so early?" He'd shown the idiot the letter from Professor Stephen Lay giving him permission to work until midnight.

"Doesn't apply," the temp had said. "It's not term time. Can't leave the building unsupervised, and the university won't pay to keep a guard on an empty building. As it is, I'm being paid time and half to work these hours and there's hardly anyone here but you."

"You're _new._ The other guards understand the importance of science."

The young man had looked at him like he was mad. "Don't push it. I don't know what happened to your face, sonny, but that bolshie attitude of yours is the sort of thing that gets you into trouble. My usual stint is over at the admin offices; they close at six. Hanging around here until eight is a bore."

"Then just leave me here. Lock the door and let me work on. You can go home whenever. I won't tell anyone."

The guard had laughed at him. "It's more than my job's worth to break the rules for a sad lab rat like you. The lights in your lab will be on. Someone sees the electricity bills and realises that equipment has been on all night—I get the chop. Sorry, mate, but you're not worth risking my pension for. All of the rest of the students and faculty have real lives; what's wrong with you that you'd rather be in here than out there enjoying yourself?"

Sherlock had just stomped off in disgust.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

As soon as he gets out of the taxi on Saxon Street, Victor can see that there are no lights on in the flat. Opening the front door confirms his suspicions of it having been unoccupied for days. The place is freezing; the central heating hasn't been on, probably for the whole month he's been gone. A stillness hangs about the flat that goes with the cold and damp, mocking his hopes of finding Sherlock there. A quick look into the downstairs single bedroom reveals that Sherlock's things have been cleared from the flat; it's empty of anything that Victor can remember belonging to him.

 _Damn_. He wonders if Mycroft Holmes could have found the key to the flat in Sherlock's pocket after the assault and used it to remove everything.

After turning the heating on, Victor drops his suitcase on the bed upstairs and then decides the place is too cold to hang about. Grabbing his bicycle from where it's been parked in the front hall, Victor heads out.

When he gets to the corner of Saxon Street and Brookside, he has to decide: should he go to Trinity College to see if the porters there know if Sherlock has returned, or try his luck elsewhere? Trinity staff aren't likely to tell him where Sherlock's staying if he is back in town. There's no point in going to Burrell's Field, because the dorms are closed to students until next week. So, if Sherlock is back, then he's going to be staying somewhere other than college rooms. Victor's paranoid enough to think that Mycroft Holmes might well have told the college to deny him any knowledge of Sherlock's whereabouts.

It's twilight, so Victor switches on his bike lights and then smiles, when the simplest of solutions comes to mind. _Obvious,_ as Sherlock would say. It's got to be the lab. Making a sharp U-turn back onto Saxon Street, Victor heads straight for the chemistry building on Panton Street. From street level, he can see that the building is almost dark. Only the reception area seems well lit, so he chains up his bicycle and heads in.

"How can I help you?"

The security guard is not someone Victor's seen before. He looks younger than the usual three that he's come to know over the autumn term. "I'm looking for someone. Sherlock Holmes; he's usually up in Room 404. Seen him tonight?"

The guard had started to look at the sign-in sheet on a clipboard, but when Victor said Sherlock's name, he stops and looks up. "Yeah. He's around; practically _lives_ here."

Victor breathes a sigh of relief. "I'm his lab assistant. Do I have to sign in, too?"

The guard shoves the clipboard over the counter. "Yes. Out of term times, everyone has to sign in. And out. He never remembers that second part."

Victor scans down the sheet to see a single entry for the day, and lifts it to see the earlier dates, too. Sherlock's totally illegible scrawl of a signature is there, starting at 3 p.m. Tuesday, the 2nd of January. Flipping back to the front, Victor signs in, and notes the time in the correct column as 4.24 p.m.

The guard takes the clipboard back and warns, "Night before last, he wasn't there when I went up to check—must have gone out when I was on my rounds. Remind him that he also has to sign out, please. Yesterday I went upstairs early before eight p.m. to chase him out. Some of us have families; it would be nice to leave work on time for once."

He's shouted the last of this down the corridor, as Victor has thrown open the door and starts to take the stairs up to the fourth floor, two at a time.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

There is a beep from the digital stopwatch on the lab bench. Sherlock looks at the temperature gauge and groans. Ninety seconds, but the temperature in the heating element is only registering a rise of eighteen degrees. He has to start over again, when it's already been a frustrating four days' work. Adding to all his woes with the machinery and the cold, the fact is that working alone is half as effective as when Victor had been working with him.

He tries to shove useless thoughts of Victor out of his head and concentrate on his work, but he can't muster up any enthusiasm for it, especially since the effect of the cold has set his timetable back. Even the _E. coli_ bacterial solutions are growing at a slower pace, despite him using the incubator which is supposed to keep an optimal temperature. Fighting the cold in the lab overnight means slower growth, and weaker bacterial concentrations affect the results. Yesterday, it had taken four attempts before the equipment had warmed enough to manage running a proper procedure.

His stomach growls a complaint which he ignores. The horrible B&B doesn't do meals, apart from the thoroughly disgusting breakfast that Sherlock wouldn't touch with a barge pole. The woman who runs it looked askance at the cuts on his face when he'd first arrived.

"Looks like you didn't have a happy New Year," she'd smirked.

He hadn't replied, but it is a fact that Sherlock is self-conscious about his wounded face. The bruises are nearly gone, but the cuts are taking longer to heal. Angry red welts show up on his pale skin and make shaving painful. Partly to avoid the other guests' stares, he creeps around the B&B. They're all strangers to him, and he constantly wonders which one of them is working for his brother. Has his room been bugged? He wouldn't put it past Mycroft to have done so. As a result, he's managed to spend as little time as possible there. If only he could stay with Victor, but that's not at all likely now. The thought constricts his chest and makes the cracked ribs hurt.


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter Twenty Three Reunion**

* * *

Sherlock is concentrating hard on the timing of the second heat shock. He sets the digital stopwatch for ninety seconds and presses the button on the heating element. Keeping an eagle eye on the temperature gauge, he watches the digital numbers click up every second. Finally, the equipment seems to be working a little quicker right from the start. It's going to work this time; he's sure of it. His concentration is so focused that it isn't until the last moment that he realises someone is walking down the hall—a quick heel strike of shoes on the linoleum floor that makes him wonder if he's lost track of the time. Is this the wretched guard coming to tell him he's got five minutes to shut everything off? A quick glance back over his shoulder at the clock on the wall above the door says it's only five thirty, so that can't be it.

Before he can even attempt to make another deduction as to who's arriving, the door opens, and Victor comes through at speed, his long stride carrying him half a dozen feet into the room. When he sees Sherlock he stops, his expression shifting from determined and excited—maybe even happy?—to shocked and concerned.

"Your face-" he trails off hesitantly.

The sound of that voice makes Sherlock realise how much he has missed it over the past five weeks, but Victor's words startle him enough to turn away in embarrassment to look back at his experiment. Had he stared inappropriately? Is his surprise and delight too obvious? Or, was Victor's comment simply a disgusted reaction to his facial injuries?

 _Why is he here?_ Sherlock cannot understand it. For a moment, he is terrified that Victor has come to yell at him, to berate him for what has happened to Chloe and his teammates. He wants to kick himself for not realising that Victor might want to express his anger and disappointment face to face instead of just staying away. This always, _always_ happens to him: being too late to realise that he must have done something socially wrong and is about to face the consequences.

 _Breathe._ Something is interfering with his vision, sprinkling tiny dark spots over his surroundings. Blinking rapidly, Sherlock takes three quick breaths to try to quell his panic and forces his eyes to focus on the equipment directly in front of him. He can suddenly smell the _E. coli_ solution in a stench strong enough to threaten to overwhelm. Why do his senses always seem to go berserk when he is startled?

He reaches for science as his lifeline. _E. coli_ stinks because of the reaction of the enzyme tryptophanase converting the amino acid tryptophan into the noxious indole responsible for the bad smell of human faeces. Rehearsing the chemical formulae involved calms him a little, and the stench retreats.

 _Think._ Since Victor doesn't look angry, logic dictates that the only reason why he would have come here is because he thinks that Sherlock had been mugged. He must think it had been a simple street crime since he couldn't know about Chloe yet. Not unless Mycroft had told him, and that is highly unlikely. His brother wouldn't trust the details to her former fiancé, in case he tipped her off early before the proctors had built their case.

 _It can't be that._ Sherlock is flailing around in the dark, the reason why Victor has come to the lab still eluding him despite the passable deduction that he's here on a courtesy call.

 _Why can't I think clearly?_ Again, Sherlock's thoughts are running all over the place, and he feels them scatter, totally out of control. Is he on the edge of a melt-down?

There is a beep which startles him, making him jump and almost fall off his stool. For a moment, he has no idea what's going on, until his brain catches up to what his eyes register as the stopwatch—the ninety seconds are up. He glances over at the digital readout on the machine and is relieved to see that the temperature gauge reads twenty degrees higher.

"At last," he mutters, and keys in the commands to start the second phase of the experiment. This is exactly what he needs to focus on while he tries to recover his equilibrium, even if it means ignoring Victor for a moment. _People don't like that but needs must._

Before long, he hears the sound of a stool being rolled out to his left, and a seat being taken on it.

"Do you want me to set up a second assay rig over here?" Victor asks.

Sherlock had disassembled the rig when he'd assumed that Victor would not be returning. Not trusting his brain to pick suitable words right now, he just nods. Victor being willing to help with the experiment must mean that he doesn't know anything about the assault, or Chloe's role in it. _Or does it?_ Sherlock is utterly confused, which is doing nothing to curb the sense of imminent disaster if he can't get on top of what's going on.

There is the sound of glassware being assembled, then tubing and the second piece of heating equipment being picked up and put back into place. Sherlock keeps his eyes on his own set-up, nursing the samples through the next stage of the protocol; he listens and can see movement with this peripheral vision, enough to know that Victor is getting on with it. _Good_. While they are both working and Sherlock can hide behind taking notes of the machine readings, he has time to think.

Maybe he should stop Victor from assembling the second rig: once he learns about Chloe's fate, he probably won't come back tomorrow morning. That means the second equipment set up will be pointless, and Sherlock should have spared him from the fruitless task of setting it up. He knows his shoulders have just dropped, but he can't stop his disappointment from manifesting itself. For a moment, he had allowed himself to think they could go back to how things used to be, but that's ridiculous, isn't it?

"We need to talk," Victor eventually says.

His voice stirs things in Sherlock that make him almost squirm. But, the words themselves are scaring him, so without thinking he blurts out: "Just wait… Wait two minutes. I can talk, once this phase is over."

Hiding behind the experiment, Sherlock tries to get his breathing back under control so he can focus on the readings he's taking. The timing is crucial; he has to keep calm, or this run will be spoiled, too. But, it's _so_ hard to focus with the sense of doom swelling in him every second, swirling into a mess with the exhilaration of being in Victor's company again. In a few moments, it will all be out in the open, and Victor will leave, and he will never see him again and he'll go back to nobody wanting to talk to him and missing Victor as terribly as he had during Christmas-

 _What if it could be alright? What if he forgives me?_

Sherlock quickly squashes that thought as wishful thinking. It's wildly premature in the least, since he will not, _cannot_ make assumptions without more data. For all he knows, Victor is just waiting to tell him that he's ending whatever contact they've had; their friendship is over. He should use this opportunity to stall the inevitable in order to try to ensure he doesn't go to pieces when the truth is told, and everything is wrecked beyond repair.

It surprises him how much this is going to hurt.

Luckily, he can see with his peripheral vision that Victor isn't looking, because he's resumed assembling the kit for the second assay. Sherlock stares at a number appearing on the screen and then eventually realises its meaning. He makes a note of the concentration levels of the expressed protein chain on the chart on his pad, while at the same time trying to deal with the constriction in his throat. He is grateful that Victor can't see the pencil wobble.

He realises that he is going to have to tell Victor the truth: explain to him about Chloe, the prank, the assault and what is going to happen at the hearing tomorrow. It's the only way he can avoid looking like a coward who'd lie and obfuscate in addition to ruining other people's lives.

 _Once Victor knows the truth, then he won't want anything to do with me._

 _This is going to hurt so much._

Sherlock has to drop his hand to the lab bench to hold on, because if he doesn't, he knows he will not be able to resist rocking since his anxiety is reaching critical levels. Giving in to the impulse to stim in Victor's presence would be too embarrassing for words.

The digital readout on the machine beeps again, announcing the end of the run. The system will take twelve minutes to cool down enough for the samples to be removed; then, it needs to be taken to the freezer to join the others which had been done before Christmas.

Sherlock knows he has run out of time; there is nothing more to wait for in the experiment.

Drawing a deep breath, he turns towards Victor. "You need to kn––"

At that very moment, Victor opens his mouth as well: "I'm sorr––"

They both stop.

Victor smiles. "You first."

Sherlock shakes his head.

The smile on the blond young man's features broadens. "I insist."

Sherlock is convinced that this is the last time he will see Victor looking at him with that smile, or with any sort of an expression beyond anger and bitterness.

He should finish what he started to say, because Victor deserves to know the truth, but what comes out of his mouth is something entirely different. "Your shoulder has made a full-recovery, but your nose is still hurting you, especially at night." Delivered at breakneck speed, the deduction rolls out surprisingly smoothly.

Whatever Victor might have been expecting Sherlock to say, this clearly surprises him. "Um, yes. You're right." He rolls his shoulder to demonstrate. "It only took a week to be back to normal. How did you know?"

"Obvious." At speed, Sherlock info-dumps some more as though acting on auto-pilot: "You put all the lab equipment together without any problem, showing a return to a full range of motion and complete dexterity, so clearly there was no damage to your rotator cuff. The more common concomitant injury to a dislocated shoulder in one your age is damage to other supporting tissues—such as the labrum or the glenoid—which is the cartilage that helps stabilise the head of the humerus. Or, a tear in the biceps tendon is always a possibility, even without degenerative changes, but you were not exhibiting any signs indicative of it; if you had any residual pain in that area you would have hesitated before lifting the heating module." He runs out of breath.

Victor gives a tiny, incredulous laugh. "That sounds like you've been talking to my physiotherapist; I didn't know you knew that much about anatomy and sports medicine."

"I didn't. The newspaper account obligingly identified your injury."

"Not in such detail. You must have researched."

Sherlock shrugs and flaps a hand towards the lab bench. "That's what I do."

Victor is still smiling. "But, the nose… How do you know my nose still hurts, especially at night? You're right, it does, but there's no bruise, no mark left, and I just don't get how-"

"You can't sleep on your back," Sherlock cuts in, remembering Mycroft berating him from not having the patience to let other people finish talking, "Because of your injured shoulder, you sleep on your right side. That puts your nose into contact with the pillow. I know it hurts because my nose was broken, too, and I can't sleep well, either."

That wipes the smile off of Victor's face. "Oh God, Sherlock–– I didn't know your nose was broken! That's why I was so surprised when I walked in and saw the scratches on your face, and that bruise under your eye—that's looks _bad_. I know what a spear tackle can do; it's illegal as hell, but the grass of a rugby pitch is nothing compared to the cobbles on Saxon Street."

Realisation kicks in, and Sherlock goes very still. _How does Victor know all those details?_ "My brother? Did he tell you?"

"No, no way. He wouldn't explain your injuries in any detail, but he claimed that they weren't serious and that you were healing. When I called, both times, he basically told me to piss off. It was Chloe—she had fucking _photos_ of what they did! It was on Boxing Day; our parents pushed us into meeting again, even though I didn't even want to see her. That's when she showed them to me; she's _crazy_. I was so horrified about what happened to you—that's what I was going to say, when we interrupted each other: Sherlock, I'm so, _so_ _sorry_. They hurt you because she could not accept why I'd broken the engagement. As soon as I got home, I tried to telephone you because I wanted to know if you knew who was behind it, and whether we should go to the police."

Sherlock is trying to keep up with the conversation, but it's like there's a five second lag between what his ears hear and what his brain is willing to process.

A silence falls as he catches up and finds his tongue: "No police. I told Mycroft I wanted nothing like that."

"But why not? They could have broken your neck or fractured your skull!"

 _Victor cares!_ Sherlock wants to hold on to that fact like a lifeline but forces himself to keep in mind that such sentiment will hardly last once Victor finds out how Chloe's impending fate will ruin his reputation, too. "I thought if you didn't know, then you wouldn't hate me for whatever part I've played in the breakup of your relationship. I tried to tell Mycroft to leave well enough alone, and I'm sorry you found out all that."

"That's _ridiculous_! You're the _victim_ , Sherlock—you shouldn't be sorry for anything. And, my relationship with Chloe has been going wrong for ages, even way before Bullseye took a chunk out of your leg. I just didn't really want to face that. You're not to blame. This last thing…" Victor closes his eyes and shakes his head. "She's a horrible person. Maybe she's changed a lot, or maybe I just didn't want to see it before... Anyway, it took me a while to realise it, but I did. And that's something else I have to apologise for. I knew she was behind the Rag Week prank, and I should have told you. I had no idea things would escalate the way they did, but if I had been honest back then... I don't know, maybe you'd have known to be careful and could have avoided the assault somehow."

"The one did not necessarily lead to the other; causality is not established. It's not your fault. I don't think I would have done anything different, even if I had known. Maybe they would have sought me out later if they hadn't found me that night." How could he have been vigilant 24/7 or prevent anyone from getting the opportunity? He wouldn't have said a word to Mycroft, that's for sure. That pompous git thinks everyone is out to get him, anyway; no need to bloat that paranoia. He'd probably lock Sherlock up at Parham and throw away the key _for his own protection._

Victor gives him a grim smile. "That's generous of you. Doesn't absolve me of the responsibility, though. You've always been honest with me, so it's embarrassing to admit that I haven't always been that way with you."

Sherlock has to look away for a moment. _Honesty, indeed._ The moment has arrived: he will now have to tell Victor about what is yet to come. He shifts in his seat so that he can luxuriate in one last, long look at Victor's face. He needs to store this memory away: his last moment of friendship, about to be blasted apart.

He draws a breath and then: "Um… That's what I was going to say, what I started to say, what I need to tell you. I need to be honest. Mycroft didn't tell the police, but he did nudge the university Proctors to look into it. He's an idiot and I am sorry for that because it's going to mean that this will stop being a private matter. The proctors found the photos in Chloe's room at Girton which she must have shown you, and some more. She is rather stupid—totally unworthy of someone like you—since she would commit a crime and then keep the incriminating evidence." Sherlock can't help rolling his eyes at that. "She's been called to a hearing taking place tomorrow, and it won't be just rustication; they are sure to expel her…. for good, I am afraid. But, the hearing is going to mean that other people are going to get involved. You will be mentioned, for certain. They will seek to identify the two rugby team members, for example, which will undoubtedly complicate matters for you as captain. I'm sorry. I never, ever wanted any of this to come to light."

There—he's said it.

 _Victor doesn't deserve this._ _He has done nothing wrong, save for having a deplorable taste in women._ He has been nothing but helpful since the dog bite had happened. Now, Chloe is going to lose her degree and be disgraced. The scandal will spread to the rugby team, and Victor will be caught up in all of it, even though he had nothing to do with it. The shame of having to face other people and deal with their reactions will be enough for Victor to say enough is enough.

Sherlock has known this is coming for days, and yet now that the moment has arrived, he doesn't feel prepared at all. His chest feels is constricted, and he's getting desperate to stim to drain away the tension.

 _Everyone already hates me. It's just going to get much worse._

He's the one everyone is going to blame. He'll likely be calledin to be questioned by the Proctors, to explain why he got involved in Victor's life in the first place, making him the one to drag his name into the mess Chloe has cooked up. It won't help to say nothing; Mycroft will undoubtedly fill in the blanks if he hasn't already done so.

"You have to believe me that I didn't want any of this––" he starts quietly before the anxiety steals away the remains of his voice. He's known this is coming for days, and yet now that the moment has arrived, Sherlock isn't prepared. His chest hurts, his cracked ribs resume their aching and he has to grab hold of the lab bench.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

When Victor sees Sherlock turn to grab the lab bench, and the grimace of pain that the boy tries to suppress, he is shocked.

"Are you okay?"

He can't keep concern from bleeding into his voice. Whatever his various aches and pains had been over the holidays, he's accepted them as an occupational hazard. Rugby players get injured. Sherlock isn't used to that kind of physical damage and seeing his pain rips something in Victor. _It's not fair._ Add to it what must have been emotional, even psychological impact of being assaulted, and the thought of what he's been put through makes Victor want to punch someone—preferably the five rugby players who thought nothing of beating Sherlock up.

 _If only I'd been there that night._

When Sherlock slowly hunches over and lowers his head to the counter-top, Victor rolls his stool right beside him and puts a hand gently on the boy's back.

"Talk to me, Sherlock. Does it hurt somewhere?"

"What do you want me to say? It's my fault that any of this has happened."

The words are muffled, but Victor can hear the stress.

 _Oh, God; this is it._ This is when Sherlock tells him to piss off, to leave him alone, to take Chloe, the prank, the assault and everything and just get the hell out of the lab and his life.

He knows has seconds to rescue this situation before the price of their friendship becomes too high for Sherlock to bear. It's what his brother had warned about on the phone, but Victor had not wanted to hear it. It's now or never.

"Listen," Victor blurts out, "What you've just said about Chloe. I knew about that already. She called me when she got the summons to appear at the panel. I'm glad! Being sent down and disgrace… that's the least she deserves. If you want to prosecute her, I'll be the first one in the bloody witness box telling the jury just what she did, what she showed to me. And I hope this whole thing does muck up her future; she's got what's coming to her. And the same about the rugby club. I recognised two in the photos she showed me; utter creeps. And I know the guys they run around with, too. As soon as the coach gets back from the South African tour, I'm going to be in his office telling him that if he doesn't kick the five of them off the team, then it's them or me. And if you want to prosecute them, then just say the word. I'll be behind you one hundred percent."

Sherlock slips out from under Victor's hand, rolling his stool away so he can straighten up to look at him in astonishment. "Why would you do that?"

"Because you are more important to me than they are."

Sherlock is blinking as if the light is bothering him. "Wh…wh… why?"

The stutter from someone usually so eloquent worries Victor, but he thinks it is important to answer immediately. "Because you're my friend. The only friend I have made of my own choice here at university. Over Christmas I did a lot of thinking about what it means to _be_ a friend, to have one. People I once thought of as friends aren't, not really. You've shown me that. You've shown me _so_ much. I value our friendship in a way that… well, it kind of surprises me, but I think you are the most remarkable person I have ever met or am likely ever to meet."

Sherlock looks utterly confused. "Why would you even want to be associated with someone like me? People _hate_ me. I don't have friends. I'm not normal. They laugh at me, when they aren't plotting how to humiliate me or beat me up. Your Rugby team mates jumped at the chance to do that, even though they'd never met me before. I'm like a magnet for other people's aggression. You have lots of friends, dozens of them. You're popular. People _like_ you. You had a fiancée who loves you, or at least she did until I came along and spoiled things." As the bridge of his nose wrinkles in an unconscious expression of his bewilderment, Sherlock winces.

Victor shakes his head, adamantly. "The rugby team aren't my friends, and I don't love Chloe; I haven't for a while now, but I hadn't realised it or wanted to accept it. I was drifting, doing things out of habit. None of that 'being popular' shit matters. I used to think it did, but that was because I just sat back and let other people push me around. If it wasn't my dad, it was Chloe and her family telling me what to do."

Mimicking the aristocratic accent of the Seaman patriarch, Victor drawls; "'Do this, do that, boy; live your life the way we think you should and you'll make something of yourself, despite your humble origins'. It's all bullshit. They think they are my friends, but they're not. They're using me, and my dad's money."

Watching the surprise registering on Sherlock's face, Victor decides to put it as clearly as he can. "All that is over, I'm fed up with other people telling me what to think; time to make my own choices. From now on I'm doing what _I_ want. With _who_ I want. And that's… _you_."

As soon as the words are out of his mouth, Victor feels a bit self-conscious. If someone had overheard this conversation, would they misinterpret this as a come-on? He's not meaning that, but perhaps Sherlock might not appreciate the subtle difference.

He decides to clarify. "You are my friend. I have enjoyed the time we spend together, whether it's here in the lab, in a concert hall, in the flat, on the sofa rehearsing the rugby playbook—whatever it's been, with you it's all good. Unlike all those other people who thought they were my friends, you've had the courage, the decency to be honest with me. You have no idea how much I appreciate that."

There is a beep from the machine in front of Sherlock and they both turn to look at it. The temperature gauge has hit the threshold of 16 degrees centigrade.

Victor smiles. "I'll take that down to the freezer if you want to set up the next run. I think we've got time for a couple more before we have to leave at eight."

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

With Victor keeping an eye on the time, for once Sherlock manages to get things packed away for the night in good time, and they are heading down the stairs to the front door before eight. By running two experiments in tandem, Sherlock knows that Victor's help has compensated for the day's earlier failed attempts.

Sherlock's got an idea about how they can sort things tomorrow. "If I get here when the doors open at eight, I'll turn the equipment on and start warming things up."

"I'll bring breakfast, and we can eat it in the lab while getting things going." Victor stops on the landing between the third and second floors. "When did you last eat anything?"

Sherlock grinds to a halt and stares down at the floor, thinking. Eventually, he mutters "Yesterday, I think. Might not be. Can't really remember."

Victor snorts. "Then you're coming with me now. I'm starving, and the Chinese up Lensfield Road does good Kung Po chicken."

Sherlock starts to think about Mycroft's conditions. He had not sought out Victor's company, but he isn't going to run away from him. As his arrival is likely to have been seen by whoever is tailing Sherlock these days, then Mycroft will know that the first of his stupid rules has already been broken. How did that old saying go? _May as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb._ That's what Frank Wallace used to say when Sherlock got worried about some misdemeanour or another.

It's an easy decision to make: he will go have dinner with Victor.

When they get to the desk, the guard isn't there, but Victor reaches over the counter-top to snag the clipboard and signs them both out. They are nearly out of the door when a shot stops them. "Hang on a minute!"

Victor rolls his eyes and shouts back, "We've signed out already."

The guard grabs something off the desk and walks over to Sherlock. "This came for you; courier delivered it and said I was to make sure you got it before you left. Deliver into your hands, he said; made a big deal of that."

Sherlock warily takes the padded envelope and strides off into the dark.

Victor thanks the guard and follows Sherlock out into the cold January air. There's a bitter wind blowing straight from the east off the Fens and it feels like snow.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

"Aren't you going to open it?"

Sherlock frowns at the package. He'd dumped it on the table when they'd arrived, ignored it as they ordered, and then seemed to have forgotten it as they swapped tales about how awful their Christmas had been. Then the food arrived, and they ate in companionable silence.

Now, over fortune cookies and another pot of green tea, Victor's curiosity is getting the better of him. "It's sat there for the whole meal. I don't know how you can just ignore it. Go on; I'm curious."

Sherlock unzips the tape sealing the end of the packet and pulls the contents out. It's a small box, about six by eight inches and only a few inches deep, wrapped in turquoise blue paper with a purple ribbon and bow. That makes him roll his eyes and start to stuff it back in the envelope.

"Wait; it's a present? Do you know what it is or who it's from? Is it a late Christmas gift?" Victor is amused that Sherlock seems a bit flustered, a trace of pink appearing on his cheeks. "Speaking of which… you do know that I telephoned Parham to thank you for your gift; it's gorgeous. I have yours back at the flat." He pauses, then realises that there is no reason to wait. "I've been invited to stay in London for a long weekend in London starting on Friday, on the 18th of February; I've got us two tickets to a concert at the Wigmore Hall on the Saturday night. It's a performance of some Bach by a violinist called Christian Tetzlaff. I hope you haven't got anything else on."

"Tetzlaff is brilliant. Of course, I will come."

Victor's smile matches the one that has just bloomed on Sherlock's face. He'd sweated blood trying to come up with something that would be appreciated, and this seems to have hit the spot.

He decides to tease a bit. "Now that I've told you my present to you, let me in on what's in the box."

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "This isn't important. It's from my brother. His choice of wrapping colours is the clue; they're on the family coat of arms."

Victor remembers what he'd heard about Parham, about Mycroft Holmes. "It's not the right shape for a book. Go on, open it up."

The purple silk bow is pulled, the top of the box removed, and tissue paper pushed aside before Sherlock liberates a photo frame. As he lifts it closer to look at the photo in the frame, a white card flutters down to the table.

Victor grabs it and reads it out loud: "Wallace said you wanted one for yourself. Trust you to choose the odd one out, but I will honour your wish. Happy Birthday, brother mine."

He laughed at the weird wording. "' _Brother mine'_?"

"Pompous twit," Sherlock responds. "Likes to use archaic sentence structure sometimes."

Victor leans across the table to see the picture. Sherlock obliges by turning it around, and Victor sees a photo of a black Labrador dog's head. Next to it in someone's hands is a tiny brown puppy, with a squashed-up nose and closed eyes.

"Parham is a shooting estate, and breeds gundogs. I was there when this one was born six days ago. According to the gamekeeper, Mycroft would have given her away, because he doesn't like chocolate Labs. I told him I wanted to keep the dog as mine. I've called her Bella.

Victor glances back down at the card and realises that this isn't a Christmas present. "Happy Birthday? Is it your birthday today?"

Sherlock nods and then mutters, "Not something I am used to celebrating. But I am happy to see you again. And happy that it is against Mycroft's prohibitions. He said I wasn't to contact you, to see you again, or to move back into Saxon Street."

"Who the hell does he think he is? How old does he think you are, fifteen? He can't order you about like that."

"Today is my twentieth birthday."

Victor pours them both another cup of jasmine tea and raises his in salute. "Happy birthday, Sherlock. Here's to both of us living our own lives."


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24 Observations**

Victor tries to stifle a laugh, but Sherlock sees it anyway.

"What?!"

Victor has learned how to read Sherlock's expressions over the past three weeks of January, so he can tell that the short, sharp question is not angry but uncertain. The expression he has on is what Victor thinks is his _I–want–to–laugh–with–you–but–don't–get–the–joke_ face.

"Those two girls we just passed. Did you see them giving us the eye?"

Sherlock's bewilderment shifts to understanding. "You, not we. They were looking at you."

"Nope. Definitely both of us. First me, because, well, I'm so tall and big they can hardly miss me. But, once they finished the up-down thing that girls do when they see a bloke they fancy, then they looked at you. And did the same. The brunette likes you better than me. I guess you're more her type."

Sherlock's expression now turns to dismay. "No. That can't be true. Girls look at you because you fit the ideal standard of masculinity; any glance at a magazine or a film shows that much, even to someone like me, who doesn't read or watch that kind of thing." As they continue walking down the pavement, they pass a bus shelter with an advert for the film Gladiator, with Russell Crowe sporting an impressive upper torso musculature under his Roman armour.

"See what I mean?" Now Sherlock is laughing. "You could be his body double."

Victor finds himself blushing and is grateful for the fact that it is dark enough that it won't be noticeable. The two of them are walking on the pavement up Sidney Street just as the late–night pubs and clubs are getting busy.

Victor is certain about what kind of a look the brunette they'd just passed had given Sherlock; when he'd glanced back at her, she'd been looking at Sherlock's arse with an appreciative eye. He had to agree with her; it's one of the boy's best features. "The brunette definitely liked the look of you."

"That's ridiculous. I have too long a face and too high a forehead. My eyes are set too wide apart, with a mouth that looks like it belongs on someone else's face. My hair is absurdly curly and wild. I have none of the visibly defined musculature that women are assumed to want, if that movie star is anything to go by. My hands and feet are too big, my limbs are ridiculously long; at school, they called me an alien life form; a freak." The amusement is gone, banished by bitterness Sherlock is trying hard to conceal.

Victor finds it sad that Sherlock is so critical of himself—clearly, he's blind to what Victor can see. In contrast to his own height and bulk that make him feel like a lumbering ox, Sherlock is lithe and quick, more a sprinter than a brawler. Without Victor's overgrown chest muscles needed for elite sport these days, Sherlock is… well, more _balanced_ physically; to Victor, everything about him is in a pleasing proportion. After the narrow hips, above that arse, comes a long back that is curved into perfect posture. Unlike Victor's neck, which is thick enough to stand the pressure of a ruck, Sherlock's neck is long and graceful. That wild dark hair sets off the pale unblemished skin of his face and those amazingly coloured eyes are set over cheekbones that Chloe had once described as belonging to Faye Dunaway. At the same time, she complained that it wasn't fair for a man to be given lips like that. In short, Sherlock looks different from almost every male that Victor has ever been around, and he is rather mesmerised by the novelty of the experience. The rugby team, the big-boned farmers' sons doing land economy—they all had an earthbound, slow heaviness, whereas Sherlock is all air and energy. Victor can fully appreciate what that brunette saw in Sherlock because he can see it, too, and it puzzles Victor that Sherlock is clearly oblivious to the effect he has on women. Being in his company almost continuously for the past three weeks has made Victor aware of this blind spot of his friend. He's even caught the undergrad chemistry student in the lab giving Sherlock more than the once over, despite the fact that she's never had the nerve to speak to him, at least not while Victor has been present.

And, it's not just women, as becomes clear when a young man passes them on the pavement, and Victor watches the guy's eyes glance past him and then stick firmly on Sherlock. Victor's been trying to figure out whether Chloe's bitchiness about Sherlock's being gay was just her stupid attempt to pour cold water onto their friendship, or whether she knew for sure.

Does it matter if Sherlock is gay? Not at all, but the prejudice of his father is a potential stumbling block. Jack Trevor is a raging homophobe, so much so that Victor has never been willing to admit to him that he'd had a crush on that schoolboy friend when he was fourteen. He's been thinking a bit more about Charles over the past couple of weeks. The fact that he was a gorgeous, dark-haired tennis player in the Sixth Form must have made that boy the object of many a Fifth Form boy's fantasies—including Victor.

He has been curious about Sherlock, but realises that sexual orientation is a subject the boy is not likely to ever voluntarily address. Charles had known and enjoyed every infatuation going on around him, whereas Sherlock seems unaware and apprehensive about such matters.

As the pair turn off Sidney Street onto Green Street, Sherlock remarks, "You notice women looking at you when I don't."

Victor realises this is an ideal opportunity that might slip away if he isn't direct. "Do you notice _anyone_ looking at you? Male or female?"

Sherlock actually stops in his tracks, meaning that Victor has to do the same to be able to see what expression is on his friend's face. It's showing surprise and embarrassment at the moment. Not an uncommon occurrence when he is asked something personal. It always seems to surprise him that someone would be interested.

"Why would I do that?"

Victor smiles and shrugs. "Sex?"

Now, surprise turns to a sort of wariness. "No. Not interested. I mean, not with––" There is a pause as Sherlock looks in the shop window, as if trying to decide what to say. "Women…don't appeal to me in that way."

 _Now or never._ "So, you're gay?"

Sherlock makes a face. "Not like _that_. Not the way you and other people think of the gay stereotype scene. I'm just _me._ And, so far anyway, sex isn't something I've enjoyed." Now, he looks back at Victor. "Unlike you. Do you miss having sex with Chloe? Are you going to start dating again?"

The street light on the corner gives just enough illumination that Victor can take in the fact that he is being closely scrutinised by his companion. Without thinking, he blurts out, "God, no. I'm sort of off women since Chloe. In one way, it was easy being in a relationship with her from such a young age, because it spared me the hassle of dating. I never even looked at another woman like that—you know, in a sexual way, while we were together, and I am in no hurry to do so now."

"Good. That's good to know."

Victor's surprised. "Why? Why does it matter to you if I started seeing someone?"

Sherlock looks away, down the street as if suddenly fascinated by something down there. "Practicalities. If you start dating again, your new girlfriend might want to kick me out again."

"Don't be silly, Sherlock. I wouldn't let that happen. And I'm not dating. I'm doing things with you that I enjoy a lot more than most of the stuff Chloe wanted my company for. Like the cycling."

That is the reason why they are walking up this street. They are going to meet a student who lives in digs up this road; he's selling a used but very good bicycle and Sherlock is about to make the purchase. He's looked at half a dozen bikes over the past week, after his last appointment with the physiotherapist ended with a recommendation that he take up the activity as a way to re-build his leg's muscle tone.

It had taken a bit of digging on Victor's part to find out why Sherlock had been initially reluctant.

"I thought every Cambridge student had a bike."

"I don't."

"Why not?"

"I haven't ridden a bicycle since I was ten."

"You won't have forgotten how. It's just a case of practicing."

Victor kept at it for a couple of days. "If you get a bike, then journeys between the lab, the library and the flat will take less time than walking. More time in the lab is good, isn't it? And once you get the hang of it then we can get out of the city, go into the countryside, get some fresh air."

"Why would I want to do that?"

"You might enjoy it."

"Might not. It's just transport."

Victor's campaign then shifted gears. He'd rented a bicycle, and brought it back to the flat, parking it next to his. "Tomorrow, we will go for a ride; I've got books to get back to the library, and you do, too. Then you can decide if you want to carry on."

It had taken Sherlock a couple of false starts and some wobbles, but he'd managed it, and they'd made it to the library across the river in seven minutes instead of the usual twenty. After a week of using it in town, Sherlock had announced the experiment was a success. "And it throws off Mycroft's spies, too."

That had surprised Victor. "Are you still being followed?"

"Of course. He won't have given up, just got a better quality of watcher. I don't care, as long as he doesn't interfere. And by now _you_ are also being watched."

So, they were now going to buy a bike for Sherlock. Victor has discovered that when the boy wants to do something, he goes all in. Today's purchases have included the full kit: helmet, glasses, cycling shorts and tunic, even the shoes with the cleats that slip into the special pedals.

Victor finds himself looking forward to the sight of Sherlock in Lycra. He wonders what Mycroft's watchers will make of the pair of them in full gear.

oOoOoOoOoOo

 **THREE WEEKS LATER**

Victor glances at his watch and tries not to fidget. He's loitering with intent at the bottom of the staircase that Sherlock had disappeared up forty minutes ago, off the main quad of Trinity College. Sherlock's tutorial is running late and that is a worry, because they have a train to catch. The two of them are heading into London tonight for the weekend, having dinner with his cousin Simon Spencer and his girlfriend, before staying at the man's flat. Victor has started to think of this weekend as his own birthday celebrations, even though that won't be for another week. The best part of it is being able to spend time with Sherlock, without the routine of classwork and the lab to distract them. He's been looking forward to this for weeks. On the agenda tomorrow night is that concert at the Wigmore Hall that had been Victor's Christmas present to Sherlock.

The delay caused by Sherlock's tutorial running over is a problem because the 17:32 train from Cambridge to Liverpool Street is going to be packed with rush hour commuters. Standing room only is always the norm on this particular train, as half of Cambridge seems intent on escaping south for the weekend. Victor knows that the stress of the train journey is something that has been on Sherlock's mind ever since Simon Spencer had telephoned the flat to say that he'd pick Victor up at Liverpool Street station at seven o'clock. The boy hates crowds at the best of times, so Victor knows that being penned up with so many for the one hour and twenty-eight-minute journey is going to be a test of Sherlock's patience.

Victor tries to be patient with the delay, knowing he will have to do so for the two of them. Since the sixth of January when Sherlock moved into Saxon Street, Victor's learned a lot about him. They have been together almost constantly, with just classes and lectures intervening. It truly seems that Sherlock wants to spend time together as much as Victor does, and it's been _great._ Victor has felt totally liberated. The amount of free time he now has on his hands is amazing. Instead of spending his out-of-class hours dancing attendance on Chloe at innumerable social events, or slogging through yet another rugby practice or match, he's had time to enjoy a less frenetic schedule. To his surprise, a lot of the time that isn't in the lab is just spent hanging out at the flat.

There is no pressure on him to chat as Chloe always insisted, and Victor has discovered he rather likes companionable silences. He reads more for pleasure now, and loves listening to Sherlock's violin practices in the sitting room. Chloe took her television with her when she left, and good riddance. In fact, the room seems bigger now and they often end up studying quietly in there with Sherlock's music centre producing the right kind of ambiance.

Another change is to Victor's diet. Since he resigned from the rugby team there's no need to stuff the carbohydrates anymore, so he's lost weight and feels better for it. He has always liked to cook for himself, anyway, and he'd prepared most of the meals for Chloe, so cooking for two isn't a change to his routines at all. After scrutinising the contents carefully, Sherlock almost always accepts what he's offered when Victor puts a plate in front of him. Occasionally, he will find a little pile of something like red peppers or fried mushrooms pushed to the side of the plate when he collects it for the dishwasher. This happens less and less regularly now, since over time, Victor has learned what his flatmate likes and dislikes. Anything where the ingredients are not clearly identifiable can be a complete no. During the past six weeks, Victor has also learned a lot more about what disturbs Sherlock: his sensory issues and the ensuing limitations he has to place on visual stimuli, for example. From changing the detergent used in his laundry to avoiding certain foodstuffs, Victor has accommodated and it hasn't felt like a burden at all.

Still, sometimes it's been a bit odd getting used to living with someone new, and Sherlock certainly has some peculiar habits. Victor had come home from class one late afternoon to find that all the fluorescent bulbs in the flat had been removed. Sherlock is also one to colonise the kitchen table for his work; piles of journals, papers, computer print outs and his laptop can take up every square inch in what looks to be random chaos. Victor has taken to eating at the breakfast bar instead, because the one time he'd tried to tidy up the mess on the table, Sherlock had been clearly distressed until he'd returned the stuff to exactly where it had been before Victor had re-organised it. He'd not said anything or complained; Sherlock isn't like that; he'd just re-did what he needed to do in order to feel comfortable.

In contrast to the accumulation of his books and papers strewn across the flat, Sherlock keeps the little bedroom fastidiously neat. A small wardrobe has been shoe-horned in there to replace the dress rail that Chloe had taken with her. The bottom drawer of the wardrobe is solely devoted to socks, neatly rolled and placed in a particular order that Victor cannot fathom. The one and only time he'd thought of putting the clean laundry away for Sherlock he couldn't bring himself to disturb that clearly meticulous but mysterious arrangement.

Sherlock is very fond of long hot baths, which can be a bit inconvenient, given that the toiletries Victor needs for his morning and evening routines are in the bathroom and not the ground floor loo. When Chloe had taken her baths, Victor didn't think twice of going in and getting something, but the first time he'd done it without thinking when Sherlock was in there, the boy had suddenly grabbed the shower curtain and pulled it across to shield himself from Victor's eyes. It was only after he left the bathroom that he realised that Sherlock might well have been in the midst of a leisurely wank. The thought made Victor redden in embarrassment; he's never shared a flat with a bloke before, so this had not occurred to him beforehand. Those types of issues clearly cannot by addressed with Sherlock as casually they had been with his rugby teammates. Where the locker room had always been filled with crude swearing and bragging about their latest conquests between the sheets, his new flatmate doesn't seem to speak the same language.

Victor's eradicated the last vestiges of Chloe from the flat—from her taste in food, bed linens and décor all the way to the cleaning products used in the flat. So, even her _scent_ is gone, and it's weird how Victor realises that days have passed without him thinking about her at all. For someone who had been his centre of gravity for the past five years, it's extraordinary and downright _delightful._ He'd never quite realised what a shadow she'd cast over him. His tutors have commented on how his course work has improved dramatically. He explains to them that it's due to ending his rugby career, but in reality, he knows that it's the company he is keeping these days that is making the difference. He feels he is his own person now, someone who makes his own choices.

He is _happy._

It's an odd sensation, and one that he realises he'd not been feeling for almost the whole of his time at university. What for years had passed as 'friendship' with his social circle, had been nothing of the sort. His relationship with Sherlock is based not on proximity or convenience, but shared interests and a connection that operates on a different level to any other he's had. Apart from awkward moments of adjusting to co-habitation, there've only been a few properly wobbly incidents during which Victor has had to press hard to find out what is annoying the boy. Sherlock doesn't complain openly about things, but Victor has come to recognise the signs that he's uncomfortable. Eventually, Sherlock's innate honesty comes out and Victor learns that some of the things he's done need to be adjusted. He doesn't mind. It's a thousand times better than Chloe constantly ordering him about and telling him how to live his life. Neither of the men now inhabiting the Saxon Street flat feel a great need to talk; conversations are just comfortable when they do occur, not an issue if they don't. There is an ease in being together that Victor has never had with anyone else.

They just _click_.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Shouldering through the passengers already on board and standing in the aisles, Victor uses his size to intimidate his way into the corridor between two carriages. With Sherlock following in his wake, he manages to create a small pocket of space which will give the boy some protection against the crush of the crowd. They are lucky to make the train at all.

Shared luggage consists of a backpack carried by Victor, into which they've both put what they will need for the weekend. There are complaints from various passengers about its bulk, until Victor manages to unbuckle it and drop it to the floor behind him, squashed between the back of his knees and the corridor wall.

As the train starts to move out of the station, Victor takes a worried look at Sherlock. His eyes are closed, and he is bracing himself against the metal wall panel on the other side of the corridor.

"It should get better once we get going."

A shake of the head, and a baritone retort: "No, it won't. They've got the heating cranked up in here and everyone's sweating because they can't take off their coats. _Disgusting."_

Because it is said in a voice that is too loud, Sherlock's comment gets him a couple of nasty looks from the other passengers crammed into the space. Victor sees them, but Sherlock doesn't because his eyes are still squeezed tightly shut.

"At least it's non-stop. We won't have to deal with any more passengers getting on."

Eight minutes after leaving the Cambridge station, the rail line splits just north of Great Shelford, with one branch line heading off towards the main northern train routes leaving Kings Cross. The train clunks its way over the signals to carry on south to Liverpool Street Station, and the vibration shakes the carriages from side to side. The standing passengers lurch into Sherlock and he gets pushed chest to chest with Victor. There is a groan of dismay and a muttered apology.

"Hey, it's just me; I don't mind. Hang in there." Victor puts his arms across the corridor to give Sherlock some protection and stability—something to lean against to deal with the swaying carriage. The sort of casual physical contact that sportsmen do on a pitch is something that had startled Sherlock at first, but he has seemed able to relax about it recently. That makes Victor feel privileged. Touching isn't casual or thoughtless with Sherlock, and by extension it has more meaning now for Victor as well. A good example is that out in the corridor, before the tutorial with Professor Blay, when Sherlock had straightened his shoulders as if going into battle, Victor had put a hand on his arm and wished him luck.

He'd been rewarded with a smile of appreciation, and a nod. "I'm okay. It's just a once-a-term ordeal."

So, it isn't a surprise that Sherlock is willing to shelter against Victor's arm in the crush of standing train passengers. Leaning in, he gives a hesitant smile, and then rather ruefully says, "I still wish we could have cycled to London."

Victor laughs. "Yeah, well, the forecast is for snow, so this will have to do. And I don't think Simon would like us turning up for dinner at a restaurant in Lycra, do you?" The pair are both wearing jackets under their coats, but only Victor is wearing a tie. Somehow, Sherlock's dress shirt makes him look just as presentable.

"I'd prefer Lycra."

Victor snorts. "You really have gotten into this, haven't you?"

It's true. Sherlock has taken to cycling in a big way. They often rack up thirty miles at considerable speed, pushing themselves to the limit. He is quicker than Victor; clearly has a cyclist's build. Fortunately, Victor's not competitive and is content to follow, enjoying the sight of Sherlock from behind. The Lycra reveals what Victor had guessed back in January; Sherlock's got the whipcord muscles of a greyhound, built for speed.

That hard work in the saddle has led to some calf cramps and the need for sore muscles to be massaged. The first time Victor had been in agony when his short hamstrings seized up, he'd had to work at it to convince Sherlock to remedy the situation with some hands-on help.

Face down on the sitting room sofa, Victor had ended up shouting, " _Harder, harder, give it some wellie,_ " because Sherlock's first attempt was way too tentative to unlock the muscle. After such encouragement, those long fingers of his finally got to work, making Victor wonder if playing the violin gave him an added advantage, because his left hand was almost as strong as his right. When the muscle finally released from the cramp, Victor turned over and started to giggle. "Me shouting _harder, harder_ … God, I'm glad no one overheard that conversation."

Sherlock had smirked shyly at the innuendo. Since then, the long cycle rides had begun to end with a stretching session and some massage, from which both of them benefitted. Victor has so far been successful at convincing himself that it is purely platonic—just what two blokes would do when they are best friends. He's not quite ready yet to acknowledge the idea that the attraction he's feeling is expanding into something more. He tells himself that it had been just a case of proximity and being with Sherlock so much that the wet dream he'd had two nights ago involved someone who had dark curly hair, rather than the blonde female he used to know.

Interrupting his thoughts, over the noise of the train, there is the muffled sound of a mobile phone ringing and Victor realises it's his ring tone, not Sherlock's. Unfortunately, the phone's in his backpack, which is behind him, squashed up against the corridor wall. The place is so tightly packed with people that he has no idea how to turn around, and he doesn't think he can manage to bend over to rescue it.

"Could be important; maybe it's your cousin meeting us at Liverpool Street." The volume of Sherlock's baritone is now more moderated, and Victor realises that the boy's eyes are open as he breathes this comment quietly into Victor's ear.

"Can't reach it. Top pocket of the backpack behind me. Go for it." The back of Victor's legs and his bottom are bracing it against the movement of the train.

Sherlock squats down and reaches between Victor's legs, to pull the zip on the top compartment. Seconds later, he delivers the ringing phone into Victor's hands, who hopes he isn't blushing or looking somewhat flustered. He thumbs on the call, "Hello?"

 _"Hey, Vic; it's me."_

Victor recognises the voice, and it's not Simon. He rolls his eyes, while looking at Sherlock.

"Hi, Dad. I'm on the train. Going down to London. Simon Spencer's invited me to stay at his place this weekend, remember?"

" _I tried ringing the flat, but you weren't there, so I thought I'd try that cell phone number."_

"What can I do for you?"

" _You know that the big party planned for your 21_ _st_ _next week has been cancelled? Well, it made sense what with all the hoo-hah with Chloe and the Seaman family. Anyway, I was wondering what you'd rather do; something to cheer you up. Maybe go into Norwich for a nice meal? Why not bring along a date? You've got to get back into the social swing of things, you know. I'm sure there's a queue of girls that have been making moon eyes at you for years; now that Chloe's out of the way, you can take your pick._ "

"Actually, I've made other plans. The weather forecast is pretty good for next weekend, so a cycling buddy and I are going to do an overnight bike trip to Oxford. You don't mind, do you?"

 _"Oh, I guess not."_ There's a laugh at the other end of the line. _"You're twenty-one now; you get to do what you want. Just don't get too drunk, will you? Cycle safely."_

"Sure thing, Dad. I'm going with a pretty much tee-total friend, so I don't think we'll be over-indulging. Bye for now." He looks into the amazing eyes of his companion and smiles.

Sherlock is smirking. " _Cycling buddy_ and _tee-total friend_? Is that what you're calling me now?"

"Yeah. It shuts him up."

"You still haven't explained that we're flat-sharing?"

"Nope. None of his business." Victor has reasons why he's keeping his father in the dark. Sherlock had been out of the flat when Victor had received a call from his father saying that he'd heard from the Seaman family about Chloe's expulsion. The story she had told her family had, understandably, been heavily sanitised; her version is that she had been caught up in a rugby team prank that went wrong and was being made into the scapegoat for it.

Like her, Victor has refrained from divulging the 'gory details', as he had phrased it to his father: " _Just suffice to say that Chloe turned out to be a bully, and she's been done for it. She's not the person she was when we first got together. She's bloody lucky that the injured party didn't prosecute, or she'd have faced criminal charges. I'm relieved to have put an end to our engagement before all this shit happened_."

Surely not even his father would think a bully and a disgraced socialite is a good marriage prospect. The man had been shocked but had accepted Victor's explanation and respected his wishes not to talk more about it. The last thing Victor wants is to have to explain about living together with Sherlock now and how he is related to what happened with Chloe.

Victor is shoved out of his thoughts when the train conductor pushes his way through the corridor checking tickets.

Sherlock is watching him, still with that little smile. "Tell me more about Simon Spencer. You say he is a relation?"

"Umm, yeah. His dad Peter was a cousin of my mother. He left Queensland at the same time as my dad, and they worked together in Wollongong, south of Sydney. Then I think they both emigrated at the same time, back to England. Simon was born in Australia; I was born here. I know Peter left his wife behind—divorced her; she didn't want to come to the UK, but Peter took custody. I'm lucky my mum did emigrate, even if it was just long enough to get settled here and have me. She died before I could even walk."

"How?"

Victor is a bit startled at the bluntness of the question, but he explains that it had been what his father had described as 'a short illness', but he's never been told the details. "I was so young that I can't really remember her at all, to be honest."

"Aren't you curious about her?"

Victor shrugs. "Any talk about my mother, any questions at all about her, just seem to distress Dad so much that I learned from an early age never to mention her. Family to him is just the two of us. He's an only child, and his parents died when he was just a teenager. The only relatives of mum's side of the family that Dad will even tolerate talking about are Peter and Simon."

"Simon works in the City?"

"Yeah, he's some kind of hotshot securities trader, working in Canary Wharf. He went to university at Exeter."

"Did you spend time with him when you were young?"

"Not really. His dad moved to Hampshire when they got to the UK; mine settled in Norfolk. I always get the feeling that Peter and my dad somehow didn't feel comfortable around each other. And, Simon is six years older than me, so that kind of gap is significant when you are little. But, whenever we saw each other at parties and other family gatherings, we got on like a house on fire. How much older is your brother?"

"Seven years, going on seventy."

Victor laughs. "Yeah, he seems kind of old fashioned. Speaking of the devil, you haven't heard from him? I thought you were worried he'd get pissed off at you moving back into the flat."

Sherlock shrugs. "Probably too busy sticking his nose into someone else's business, or maybe he decided that you aren't that dangerous, after all. I'm a lower priority than the government in some foreign country where he's either trying to stop or start a war."

"Well, I'm glad. He seemed to me to be rather overbearing. One less complication in our lives; sometimes I think my dad's advice is right, that relatives are more trouble than they're worth—fathers and brothers included."

Sherlock nods but then says, "Nevertheless, you asked Simon for a reference in your application for the MBA."

"Yeah, well…I thought it would look more impressive if the recommendation didn't come from Dad. Him being my employer doesn't sound very professional, does it," Victor adds dryly.

"When are you going to tell him about the fact that you've been accepted? Will Simon tell him?"

This is yet another positive development in Victor's life over the past six months. He'd applied to Cambridge University's business school and been accepted, conditional on his undergraduate degree results. Victor has delayed telling his dad; it's not going to be easy convincing him but he's determined not to end up working for AFE, or some bloody aristocrat as a land agent or estate manager.

Victor gives Sherlock a reassuring smile. "I'll get Simon to keep things confidential; I plan to tell Dad when I go home for the Easter break."

He and Sherlock have spent hours talking about what the future holds for applied genome research; Victor is convinced that this is going to make the biotech industry explode with opportunities. As it turns out, Sherlock isn't bored by the business side of things; he just doesn't think it suits his particular aptitudes. Investors, employees, manufacturers are something that Sherlock thinks Victor will be able to bring together, and this opinion had both flattered and pleased Victor; Sherlock's reaction and support matter a lot to him. It had built his confidence to the point where he'd felt really comfortable at the business school interview. Feedback about that had been very positive, and he can't wait to get started there. He's never received much praise for his Land Economy work since his heart had never been in it. Once he'd been accepted, his appetite for the remaining four months of his undergraduate degree had languished a bit, but then Sherlock had pointed out that he could shift his final dissertation topic away from a historical treatment to address some of the issues involved with genetically modified crops and the potential impact of genome sequencing on agriculture. Now, that work is nearly finished, and Victor is rather pleased with how it is turning out.

Will his father understand just how much in his life has changed?

As the train rattles its way into the suburbs of northeast London, Sherlock looks concerned; he must be picking up on Victor's anxiety. That's something else that has surprised and pleased Victor; Sherlock seems attuned to his moods and able to be there with just the right support when Victor needs it, even if he often seems quite oblivious to other people's reactions.

"Is the idea of telling your father worrying you?"

The question makes Victor realise that the idea of being away from Sherlock for almost a month is also a reason why he is dreading the Easter Break. Victor knows he would be more persuasive if he had Sherlock with him; it would give more credence to his plans since his Dad would surely realise that having someone as brilliant as a business partner would be an asset.

Sherlock's question gives Victor courage to ask him something he's been meaning to do for the last couple of days: "I could do with some back-up. Want to spend a month in the country? We could do some cycling."

He's rewarded by a shy smile. "Yes, I'd like that. Very much."

"Will your brother be pissed off if you don't go home over the break?"

Sherlock laughs. "That's part of the appeal. Mycroft will just have to get over it. I get to decide where I want to go and with whom I want to spend my time. I'm looking forward to being with you."


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter 25 Attractions

The fraternal object of Sherlock's scorn is over seventeen hundred miles away and having a miserable time of it.

"Good night, Mycroft. Not that you're the sort to enjoy it…"

Mycroft doesn't miss the sarcasm in that statement, as he watches Fitzroy Ford, Director of the Security & Intelligence Liaison Service, walk down the third-floor corridor of the St Petersburg Astoria Hotel, arm in arm with two of the city's finest escorts. His superior's suite, overlooking Saint Isaac's Cathedral, has a king size bed and a fridge full of vodka that Mycroft assumes will be put to good use while enjoying the talents of the two tall blonde women.

 _Good. It will keep him occupied, while I see to some unfinished business._ Mycroft learned long ago the risks associated with a sex drive and has successfully curbed his own for years. _Alone protects me._ If Ford has become a bit more careless lately, it may be because he is convinced that he is invincible. So, contrary to the man's snide comment, Mycroft is actually going to enjoy a bit of time to himself.

For the past month, Ford and Mycroft have been working with British intelligence assets in the Russian Federation and its CIS compatriots. At stake is the surreptitious movement of both weapons and funds through the Caucasus republics to arm and fund a variety of terrorist activities in Europe and the Middle East. The sums involved are staggering; a number of Putin's nearest friends are implicated. MI6's efforts to crack the financial intricacies of the Russian banking system have been stalled for months—raising suspicions back in London—and Ford and Mycroft have been sent to uncover the truth. The involvement of Putin's close circle means that the GRU is proving adept at turning once loyal spies against their masters. MI6 operatives are not immune to corruption and blackmail, so their mission is supposed to uncover the truth.

Once Ford is out of sight, Mycroft uses the stairs rather than the lift. His much smaller room on the second floor has an unimpressive view of the internal courtyard, but he isn't headed there. Instead of going down, he goes up three flights and exits onto the sixth floor. On the landing, he pauses to take a breather; legwork is annoyingly physical.

He can't rest for long because there are two groups of people he needs to hide his movements from: the Russians—for obvious reasons—and Fitzroy Ford, for reasons less obvious to the uninitiated. The reason why his superior is watching Mycroft's movements is because Ford is the cause of that corruption, the stimulus behind MI6's sloth, and is working hard to ensure that this truth is protected from prying eyes of London. Just as hard as Ford is working to hide the truth, Mycroft is working to collect the evidence to bring him down without alerting the man to this personal mission: trying to nail Ford for treason adds a frisson of fear to an already risky business. The half-brother is playing both sides of the exchange of weapons and money, making more than a small fortune in the process. Mycroft has found just enough evidence to tip the balance and bring the man to justice, but it isn't yet quite enough. He is also taking the precaution of planting some of his own evidence to deepen that incrimination. When he brings the dossier to the attention of the S&ILS's overseers, it has to be clear enough to warrant the kind of extreme reaction that will put the man out of circulation forever, and most importantly: without a trial. Ford cannot be given any chance of retaliation.

As he unlocks the door to Room 612 and steps in, Mycroft spots an envelope which had been slipped under the door, addressed to Otar Chankotadze, a Georgian. The booking had been made in that name for Mycroft by his secret contact in Tbilisi: Avtandil Ioseliani. The head of the Georgian intelligence service is indebted to Mycroft for a number of things, including the safe passage of his daughter Ketavan to London. These are troubled times in Georgia, and operating outside the legal constraints has become the norm. Ioseliani is one of the very, very few people that Mycroft trusts with both his life and knowledge of the plot to bring Fitzroy Ford to justice. The man has been of great assistance when it comes to tracing not only the valid proof, but also helping with the placement of the fabricated evidence. His contacts with Chechen rebels, for example, have proven invaluable.

Once inside the hotel room, Mycroft opens the envelope. Georgian is one of the few languages that he is fluent in but which Ford has not bothered to learn, awarding Mycroft one layer of protection. The faxes are also encrypted, with a code accessible only to someone using Mycroft's copy of John Le Carré's latest novel, _The Constant Gardener_ , which he fishes out of his jacket pocket and opens to page 73. The content will have come from London via Tbilisi, and been encoded twice. Belt and braces; always necessary when Mycroft is trying to outwit Ford.

It takes him ten minutes to decode the faxes, and the contents make frustrating reading, to say the least: Sherlock has disregarded all of the conditions Mycroft had set at New Year's. So much for staying away from Victor Trevor: the young man had made contact with Sherlock immediately on his return to Cambridge on the 6th of January. That very night, while Mycroft was landing in Baku on the first leg of his journey through the various 'Stans, Sherlock had moved out of the B&B and back into the flat on Saxon Street.

Mycroft could not have made his instructions clearer, and he had assumed that Sherlock's acquiescence to the B&B had meant that they had an _agreement_. Yet, the report from the boy's minders reveals that in the past six weeks that agreement had been thoroughly flouted. According to his surveillance team, the boy's been seen persistently in the company of young Mister Trevor, and has flagrantly ignored instructions to keep his head down and focus on his course work. The pair has been seen eating out, attending concerts, even taking up a new activity: Sherlock had purchased a bicycle and the two have been exploring the countryside surrounding Cambridge, stopping off at pubs for lunch. Perhaps there is some therapeutic value; cycling may help Sherlock's leg recover strength. But, that is no excuse for entangling himself yet more in Victor Trevor's life.

And, as expected, the aftermath of Sherlock's assault created a scandal at Cambridge. Thankfully, the furore around the resignation of the Blues Rugby Team captain was starting to die down by the first week of February; the decoded report indicates that by late January, five members of the second team had been expelled from CRUFC membership for unspecified misdemeanours. The match record of the first team, the Blues, has suffered without their captain, apparently losing all but one of the subsequent fixtures to date. There are rumours that the board is thinking of sacking the manager for mishandling the whole business.

On the 7th of January, the expulsion of Chloe Seaman had gone according to plan, although she had waited a week to leave Cambridge—just long enough to gain access to Sherlock's dorm in Burrell's Fields. The resulting graffiti had taken the authorities some time to remove, but was not in evidence by the time the students were allowed back into the dorm. _Thank heavens_. On the afternoon of that day, the 14th of January, after leaving Burrell's Fields, Seaman had also paid a visit to Saxon Street on her way to the train station. The spray-painted word _'queers_ ' had been removed from the front wall of the Saxon Street flat within hours by Victor Trevor himself while Sherlock had been at the Chemistry Department. As a result, Sherlock has been shielded and kept unaware of the depths of her anger.

So, it is left to Mycroft to despair of all this. He'd tried to warn his brother about how love is a vicious motivator. In fact, Sherlock's determination to expose himself to more problems by continuing his association with Victor Trevor may just be proof of that very notion. The boy had been in oblivious mode when they last spoke on New Year's Day, and clearly, he still is. The last fax says the two of them are planning a stay in in London this week.

 _Hormones_ , _Sherlock's impulsivity, and his refusal to consider consequences are clearly a recipe for disaster._ Mycroft does not need further confirmation from his younger brother as to what propels his fascination with the Trevor boy; never before has Sherlock been so obsessed and flustered over someone. He doesn't have _'friends_ ', after all.

At least the background checks on Trevor and his family suggest that there is nothing immediately dangerous. It was enough for Mycroft to dismiss one of his more paranoid theories—that Fitzroy Ford was somehow manipulating Victor Trevor into a weapon to destroy Sherlock. If it had been true, it wouldn't have been the first time*. He'd entrusted the research on this theory to Ketavan Ioseliani, the third and final person aware that Ford is a traitor. Neither of the Ioselianis can, however, be trusted with the fact that Ford is a half-brother.

What is there in the faxes is enough to send Mycroft heading for the bathroom to unearth what he knows will have been placed behind a loose tile in the bathroom. Secured by toothpaste that has dried to match the colour of the mortar, the tile hides a burner cell phone—untraceable, with no way for Ford or his Russian oligarch friends to link it to him. Even so, he will have to be very careful to paraphrase.

The number rings twice and then is picked up. " _Baker_."

"Charlie here." Mycroft lowers the tone of his voice, and delivers his words in a strong Welsh accent. "Got your messages. Watch him very carefully in London; this trip you mention is worrying."

" _The concert is at Wigmore Hall tomorrow evening; we'll have eyes on him from arrival at Liverpool Street tonight."_

"Your faxes say he's broken all but two of the conditions. Any evidence of those last two?"

" _No sir; not yet_."

Mycroft gives a silent sigh of relief. Sherlock is not using drugs and he isn't engaging in sexual relations with Trevor.

Not _yet_ , at least. _Thank God for small favours._

"You're sure? Absolutely positive?"

" _Yes, sir_."

That degree of assurance means his people must have found a way to plant a listening device at the Saxon Street flat. "Does he know who is watching?"

" _One had to be replaced because he was identified. Otherwise, we're intact_. _If we keep our distance, he seems to lose interest._ "

Mycroft is aware that without eyes inside wherever Sherlock ends up in London over the weekend, information on drugs or physical relations cannot be guaranteed with certainty. It is infuriating to be so far from the event horizon; he would attend in person if he could to try to read the truth on Sherlock face-to-face. "If either of those conditions is broken, inform me immediately."

" _Yes, sir_."

Mycroft cuts the connection, looking at his watch: thirty-two seconds. Short enough to have avoided the GRU tracing its location.

Dealing with one errant sibling is challenging enough, but two is just plain exhausting. There is nothing more he can do right now to manage the situation from afar. There is also the fact that Sherlock is legally entitled to make his own choices, now, unless there is evidence of drug use or sexual abuse. _If only he could see sense!_ Mycroft had liked to believe he had raised Sherlock to be able to resist the traps of human frailties, but ever so often the boy has been drawn to kindness and attention of others like a moth to a flame.

Mycroft takes a moment to sit on the bed and reflect on Sherlock. He knows he needs to stop thinking about him as if he was still a teenager. _If only his emotional age matched his actual years spent on the Earth._ At twenty, the boy is legally able to be more independent. Unfortunately, that means he is also free to make adult mistakes. If he were normal, he'd try to learn from them, but the boy has never been good at that, unfortunately. When pushed to the edge, Sherlock has been prone to fall over it, rather than learn how to avoid the precipice in the first place.

If Mycroft is going to protect him as an adult, he must somehow educate and persuade—rather than dictate—and to find a way to offer counsel in a manner that Sherlock finds acceptable. Of course, that is easier said than done, given Sherlock's predilection for resisting authority. It seems that the risk-taking, impulsive behaviour that is his brother's staple diet will continue to cause serious problems, especially if he keeps trying to fulfil his yearning for companionship.

 _He's always been so emotional._

Mycroft stares at the phone in his hand and the faxes on the bed, wondering how the hell he's ever managed to end up in this position, being caught by his siblings between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

 _Once more, unto the breach._ If Mycroft is successful in putting Ford in a place where he can no longer threaten him or Sherlock, then there will be time to deal with things at home. Right now, he has to prioritise his efforts on Ford; the needs of the country must be put first. The fact that Ford's fall from grace will also remove one of the biggest threats to Sherlock is another advantage. So long as Sherlock can manage to stay out of further trouble for the next few months, then Mycroft should have sorted Ford out. He can only hope that Victor Trevor will remain the moderate nuisance he is right now instead of dragging Sherlock deeper into a relationship, before Mycroft can shift his focus away from treasonous activities of one sibling to being a guiding hand for the other to pull him away from romantic entanglements.

Mycroft replaces the burner phone, uses the toothpaste on the basin to re-seal the tile, and wipes the surfaces of everything he has touched in the room before leaving. His tradecraft has to be impeccable. It's not just his own future he is protecting, but Sherlock's as well.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

They're outside of Liverpool Street Station, waiting in the dark for Simon. A Maserati comes into the pick-up lane, and parks in front of the boys.

Simon jumps out of the car to shout at Victor a "Happy Birthday, Coz". He looks down the pavement right past Sherlock, not realising they are together. "Where's Chloe?"

"Okay, Simon; I know I should have told you; we broke off the engagement." Victor rolls his eyes. "I thought _everybody_ would have heard the gossip by now. I've brought a friend with me instead of her."

Simon then seems to register Sherlock's existence, enough to blurt out, "Who are you?"

"Not Chloe."

Victor seems flustered. "Simon, this is Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock, meet Simon Spencer."

Sherlock hesitates for a split second and then shakes the hand that is offered, but he doesn't make eye contact with the twenty-seven-year-old in a pinstripe suit. He's suddenly aware of the fact that he is in London in all its magnificent sensory night is ablaze with lights from the City's skyscrapers, and he can feel the energy that seems to flow through the air. He's missed this.

There is a queue of cars building up and someone hoots a horn in frustration. Victor slips the backpack off his shoulders and walks to the rear as Simon opens the boot of the car. Victor then opens the passenger side door and slides the seat forward so Sherlock can clamber in before getting into the front beside Simon.

As they roar off down Old Broad Street, Sherlock has barely managed to get his seatbelt buckled before the car takes a sharp left onto Wormwood Street and then another right down Bishopsgate. By the time they stop at the traffic lights at the junction with Cornhill, he's just about got his legs sorted so he knees aren't squashed against the back of Victor's seat.

"I know you like French food, Victor. We're heading for dinner at one of the hottest restaurants in town."

They cross the Bank intersection and pull up to the kerbside at Number One, Poultry. A man in a uniform roadside valet service opens the passenger car door, as Simon gets out of the front and tosses the keys to him.

As Simon is pushing the lift button he explains, "Coq d'Argent." As the lift doors open, he gestures the two boys in. "It's Bryony's favourite restaurant. Her investor relations job means she gets to eat here regularly on expenses."

He looks over at Sherlock. "I guess I should have asked if you have any food allergies or stuff. Just I didn't think who other than Chloe would be accompanying Victor when I booked it back before Christmas. You aren't a vegetarian, are you?"

"No."

Sherlock doesn't say anything more. No need to pander to the guy's curiosity; he's already being scrutinised from head to toe as the lift makes its way to the sixth floor. Apparently, the dress shirt, jacket and trousers he's wearing pass muster. Whenever Simon isn't looking, he makes some observation of his own. The banker's suit is expensive, but off the peg; the shoes are brogues, probably Loakes rather than hand-made. He's got money, but no taste for the old-boy tailoring that Mycroft favours. Perhaps he recognises the fact that Sherlock's attire is mostly bespoke.

"Bryony agreed to meet us here; she sweet-talked them into a window table," Simon boasts.

When the lift disgorges them onto the roof terrace, Sherlock's senses are assaulted by the sights and sounds of a fashionable eatery. Food aromas battle with the expensive perfumes and aftershaves of the wealthy restaurant patrons. Above the dull roar of dozens of conversations, Sherlock's ears are battered by the clatter of cutlery and clink of glassware, punctuated by a barman's vigorous work with a cocktail shaker. It's enough to stop him in his tracks for a moment, leaving him a few paces behind Victor and his cousin as they go up to the Maitre d' at the reception desk.

"We're joining Miss Stemple's table," Simon says.

"Of course; follow me." The man does not hesitate to consult the reservation book or a table plan, but escorts them immediately to a table on the upper level. Here the lighting is more subdued, and the warmth of the wood wall behind reduces some of the eye strain that had beset Sherlock.

"Happy Birthday, Victor." Bryony has stood up and gives Victor a welcoming smile.

Simon pulls out a chair and drops into it, as he says, "Change of plans, my dear. He's gone and dumped Chloe and come with a friend instead."

Victor cringes a bit. "Dumped… is not a word I'd have used; more like a parting of the ways. Miss Stemple, this is my friend Sherlock Holmes." He steps aside so she can see Sherlock properly.

"Oh… how _delightful."_ Her eyes are raking over Sherlock and he suddenly feels rather exposed, and looks away, seeking something less intense. With his peripheral vision he realises that she has put her hand out to be shaken, so he steps around Victor to do what is required. Ever since he'd agreed to come on this trip with Victor, Sherlock has been priming himself for the inevitable social contacts that would come with this first evening. He's been on edge about it, worrying that he won't get through it without embarrassing Victor.

So, he plasters a smile on his face and shakes the offered hand, before murmuring, "Nice to meet you." That's what people are supposed to say, isn't it? Of course, in his case, he'd rather not be meeting anyone. But if this is the price he has to pay for having the rest of the weekend alone with Victor, he will pay it. He has rehearsed scripts, prepared for this, and is hoping for the best.

He risks a quick glance at the woman. She's attractive, well-dressed and there is something in her demeanour that makes him relax a bit. He can sense her welcoming him is genuine, and that is surprising.

"Outstanding." She is smiling at him as she says this. "Victor, your choice of friend is perfect. You two are like day and night: blond and dark, the sun and the moon." A gentle laugh and then she goes on, "A real feast for the eyes. Please be seated."

She beckons to a waiter. "Send the sommelier over, please. I need to change my order."

Simon laughs. "Bryony is a wine connoisseur; lucky me. I leave all the choices to her excellent taste."

When the sommelier arrives, Bryony is still smiling at Victor and Sherlock. "Thank you, Charles. Now that I know I don't have to cater for some Essex girl's taste, we can indulge. I think the Bollinger RD, please."

"Of course, Miss Stemple."

The champagne arrives and is opened without fanfare or flourish, then poured into flutes.

Simon raises his glass in a toast. "Happy 21st, Victor. Many happy returns of the day."

Sherlock has always been wary of alcohol; it has a tendency not to agree with his stomach, but he takes a mouthful anyway, because he doesn't want to spoil Victor's celebration.

The taste is… surprising. He has never liked champagne in the past; too acidic and dry to his palate, but this one is different. His tongue fractionates the flavours: yeasty, but not like bread. This is more brioche. There's a nutty, almost coffee-like intensity. The tastes keep coming and the length of the flavours develop and unfold on his tongue.

Bryony's smile turns a bit more serious as she lifts the glass to consider its contents. "This is from the exceptional 1988 vintage. So, what were you doing when you were ten years old, Victor?"

He laughs. "Playing truant from my prep, Hethersett Old Hall School, where I was a day boy. My father always took me out for my birthday and for my tenth I think we went to the coast and went sailing. I loved the sea, still do. That was my pirates and naval battles period."

 _Pirates._ Sherlock nearly chokes on the champagne. He can _so_ see this in his mind—Victor as a small boy enjoying himself on the deck of a sailing ship. He has come to realise that Victor has a sense of fun and adventure that he had not appreciated when he first met him. It seems that Victor has shed a lot of detritus over the past two months: the rugby playing stereotype with the social climbing girlfriend is a thing of the past, cast off like a pair of boring trousers with an equally dull tweed jacket. What is emerging is someone new and much more _interesting_.

Bryony turns to look at Sherlock. "And what about you, Sherlock?"

"I was nine. Home schooled, in West Sussex. Probably bored."

She tries to draw him out a bit. "And did you have a pirate phase?"

He finds he is blushing. "Yes. When I was younger, though. By the time I was nine, I wanted to be a chemist. Or play the violin."

Victor steps into the conversation, "Both of which he does spectacularly well now, whereas I have ceased to be a pirate." He laughs as he takes a quick sip. "Misspent youth."

The menus arrive, and Sherlock has to take a deep breath. He doesn't want to draw attention to himself, but the thought of a dinner of three or more courses is hard for him to consider. Thankfully, he spots the fact that one can order langoustine by the piece; a small portion of three will be acceptable. And, there is a risotto as a main course. It will be too big, but he can get away with that by saying it's too rich for him.

Simon and his date order foie gras and a Chateaubriand for two, and Victor picks foie gras and a fillet steak.

Bryony wants to know what sort of white wine Sherlock would like. "The sommelier is happy to open any bottle on the list for a single glass or two; a nice white burgundy would go well. I can recommend the Puligny Montrachet 1996."

"I'm happy just to finish this glass of champagne."

Simon sniffs. "You should take her up on that recommendation; she knows this wine list like the back of her hand. We'll be having a great burgundy red with the foie gras and steak, if I know her."

Sherlock really doesn't want to offend anyone, but before he can say anything, Victor comes to his defence. "It's okay, Sherlock."

When he then turns to Bryony and says, "We're both on a bit of health kick at the moment. Watching our alcohol intake," Sherlock is relieved.

"It's your _birthday_ , Coz; why not indulge?"

Bryony is watching the interplay between Sherlock and Victor, and reaches a restraining hand to touch Simon's forearm. "It's fine, Simon. The night is young. Keeping a clear head for the pleasures to come is sensible."

The dinner passes without too many anxiety-inducing moments for Sherlock. Victor is attentive and steers the conversation in a direction that can include him, talking to Simon about his ideas on the future of biotech companies and the reasons why he had decided to go to business school.

Sherlock blushes a bit when Victor starts explaining how his chemistry tutor thinks he's a genius, telling them about how Victor himself thinks Sherlock is utterly brilliant, and that the two of them have some business ideas.

"You do know your dad is going to be pretty cut up about these plans of yours, don't you?"

Victor gives a rueful smile. "It's my life, not his. I'm telling him over the Easter break. So, don't spill the beans before, please. You're lucky that your dad hasn't tried to dictate how you should organise your life."

Simon laughs, "Who said he didn't? If he'd had has way, I'd be sitting at home in Hampshire playing at being the yacht owner the way he has. Investment banking is much more interesting."

Bryony is absorbed by the conversation. "Hush, Simon. They've got a good sense for business. The gene technology sector is really going to boom over the next decade, so I think these two are really onto something. The property market you specialise in is going to peak sometime, and you really should be thinking about what comes next."

The langoustine are delicious, but Sherlock struggles to finish the third.

Victor eyes it on the plate and asks, "Can I have a bite? It's one of my favourites."

Because Victor helps out with the risotto as well, Sherlock doesn't end up looking like too much of a fussy eater—something he'd been dreading before the dinner. In fact, with Victor there, he's been able to relax a bit. Whenever he's felt a bit unsettled, he just looks at Victor. The solidity of his presence calms him. Sherlock doesn't participate a lot in the conversation, but Victor defers to him on the science side of things.

Sherlock has an espresso while the others order a dessert.

When Simon teases him about being the only one of the table who really doesn't need to watch his weight, Bryony shushes him. "Sherlock has the figure of a menswear fashion model; he really is someone who should be in a Vogue photoshoot. So, leave him be, Simon."

This seems to amuse Victor who is about to reply when the desserts arrive. Victor's tarte tatin has a single candle with a happy birthday greeting written in chocolate on the plate, but he's spared the embarrassment of having the table and the waiter singing happy birthday; he's blushing enough as it is.

Sherlock is relieved that the conversation then turns to horrible birthday gifts from relatives.

"What do you think your dad is going to get you, Victor? A twenty-first calls for something exciting," Simon suggests.

Victor shrugs. "Don't know. The party got cancelled, thank God. I've had it with his using every occasion as one of his networking events."

Simon nods. "Yeah. Been there, done that, too. Your dad and mine are more alike than I'd like. I just asked for money for my twenty first and used it to backpack around Europe all summer."

"I've asked for money, too. What he doesn't know is that I'll use it to pay rent in Cambridge over the summer. I've got a lot of reading to do before I start business school."

This is the first Sherlock has heard of these summer plans, and he instantly wonders if there is any way he can talk Professor Blay into letting him join one of those chemistry projects that are run during the summer—anything to avoid being confined to barracks in London or imprisoned at Parham.

He's so taken with the idea of spending the summer with Victor that he misses part of the conversation. When he tunes back in, Simon is saying, "…You've clearly got more ambition than I did at your age. Well done, you."

When the meal is over, Victor is profuse in his thanks, and Sherlock adds his own quiet appreciation. It hasn't been anything like the ordeal that he'd anticipated.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

When the car arrives at the kerbside on Poultry, Simon tells Victor to take off his tie and then makes an offer. "As it's your birthday, Victor… You can drive."

Victor's eyes widen in excitement, but then a little frown forms. "What about insurance? Not to say that I won't be careful…"

"Relax. It's the car that's insured, irrespective of the driver. When I'm trying to impress a client, I let them take a spin."

Simon turns to Bryony. "Given I'll be navigator, you and Sherlock can get cosy in the back."

Before she gets in the back, Bryony says, "Simon, dear. Change of plan on destination. We shouldn't go to the Ministry of Sound. It's either Turnmill or Heaven."

"What? Why….? _Oh._ Really? Are you sure about that?"

Bryony smiles. "Absolutely. No doubt about it. The boys will love it. In fact, I think it should be Heaven, for sure."

Simon is looking at Sherlock and Victor standing together on the pavement as if seeing them for the first time. Surprise gives way to some sort of realisation, and then he's smiling, too. "Yeah, now that you mention it… Do you think they will let us in?"

"Sure. It's a Friday night. I know the security staff. And I'll bet you these two will get us to the front of the line."

Cosy is a good description. Sherlock finds his legs are too long and ends up with his knees up to his chest.

"A Maserati is not made for four. Not really." Bryony gets the giggles as she needs to do the same, bringing a shapely pair of knees up to rest on the back of the bucket seat occupied by Simon, who is about the same height as Sherlock.

As Victor pulls away and heads west on Cheapside, the noise of the engine means that whatever directions Simon is giving Victor can't be heard in the back seats.

Bryony leans a little closer so that she can say something into Sherlock's ear. "You okay with this? Was I right? You've heard of Heaven, but Victor hasn't?"

He nods, still looking straight ahead.

"Been there before?"

"No. Someone I once knew…When I was in London, before university…He was in security. Did a stint there and bragged about it. The name stuck in my memory.**"

He then gives her a quick glance, suddenly anxious. "What if Victor won't like it?"

She laughed. "He'll have a good time, because you'll be there. You may not realise it, but it's as plain as day to me. He's into you the same way you are with him. It's just harder for a guy who's been handcuffed to a girl. I can sympathise; I swing both ways, and it took me a while to realise that girls were just as exciting. Different, but just as good in their own way. How else do you think I know about Heaven?"

Sherlock tries to hide his confusion. He's spent the last two months telling himself that his physical attraction to Victor is pointless, a sign of his own weakness and stupidity at being drawn to someone who is obviously heterosexual. Now, this woman is telling him the opposite.

"How can you tell? How can you be so sure?"

The car is turning left off Cheapside onto New Change Street. Victor misjudges the speed a bit and Bryony ends up sliding up against Sherlock's side.

"Sorry! Everyone all right back there?" Victor's shouted it loud enough to be heard over the car engine.

Bryony answers for them both: "Just fine."

Simon turns and leans his head through the gap between the front seats. "What are you two conspiring back there?"

She laughs and shouts, "Mind your own business and focus on the road."

Much quieter, she puts her mouth closer to his ear so she only has to whisper, "You're too close to see it. But, you're observant; you've already got me sussed, haven't you?"

He gives a cautious smile.

"Out with it, then. Come on; I _dare_ you."

It's like someone pushed a button. After being quiet and restrained all through dinner, the words start pouring out of Sherlock, even if they are whispered. "You're a grammar school girl who made it into Oxford- not Lady Margaret Hall- too blue stocking; I'd say Somerville is more your scene. Maths is your forte – probably a first, everyone said you should be an academic, but you're too clever for that. Very bright and unfortunately very frustrated in the City. You could run rings around the investment bankers you work with; risk management and credit analysis behind the trading programme are your passions, but the boys won't let you play because it's such a macho culture. So they've stuck you in the stereotyped slot of investor relations, thinking you are pretty enough and nice enough to sweet talk institutions into backing their recommendations." He gives a sly smile. "How am I doing so far?"

"Ten out of ten. But, you have questions now."

"Why Simon? You're ten times smarter than he is."

She laughs again. "Because he's easy. He doesn't want exclusive, doesn't mind me playing with the girls. In fact, it sort of turns him on. Not that I'm into threesomes. He feels comfortable because he knows I'm not after his money or marriage. It's not love, but we're _convenient_ for each other."

The car crosses the intersection with Farringdon Street and heads up Fleet Street. Sherlock knows even with traffic they will arrive at their destination in less than ten minutes.

Bryony leans into his shoulder, and with a slightly conspiratorial look in her eye, says to him: "You two, on the other hand, are _in_ _love_. And from what I've seen so far tonight, a much better match. If you don't see the fact that he loves you, just be patient. He'll get there."

The car turns into Charing Cross station, and Sherlock has no more time to think, because under the arches of this station is the nightclub called Heaven.


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter 26 Heaven**

* * *

"Hello, my name is Holly and I'm your angel tonight in Heaven*."

Sherlock promptly and completely ignores the young brunette wearing eye-wateringly sparkly eye-shadow and drops into the red leather sofa in the VIP area. This room is softly lit, unlike the dim brick labyrinth they've just negotiated to get here.

He shuts his eyes and tries to deal with the sensory overload. Even at a distance from the dance floors, the music is pounding into his cranium. He's never been in a nightclub before and now he knows why he hasn't missed out on anything: it's utter hell for someone like him. The sights, sounds and smells are almost overwhelming. A wave of nausea makes him clamp down his jaw. He will not, _cannot_ be sick. That would ruin things utterly, embarrass Victor completely and Sherlock could not bear the shame of it all. He sheds his jacket and releases the second button of his dress shirt. He needs air.

Victor slides onto the sofa beside him, a laugh in his voice as he responds to the waitress. "Any chance of a map? I'm going to get lost."

It's Bryony who answers. "Relax, Victor. I'll keep an eye on you. I know every square inch of this place except the gents'. Just make sure you hang on to Sherlock and you'll have a good time."

Sherlock frowns at the cryptic comment. Why would keeping close to him ensure that Victor doesn't get disoriented? He doesn't know this place any better than Victor does.

That Bryony is well known at the club is clear from the reception they've been given. A text message from her had resulted in one of the door security showing up to escort them to the front of the queue snaking down the arched corridor under Charing Cross Station. Once she'd paid for the foursome, they were led down yet more stairs and through dark corridors to this relative sanctuary cordoned off with velvet ropes.

"What can I get you all to drink?" Holly's voice is loud enough to be heard over the music from the main dance floor, which is being piped into the VIP area via large video screens on the brick walls. It's loud, but not as loud as what had assaulted Sherlock's ears in the corridors.

Simon orders another bottle of champagne. "Got something to celebrate, don't you Victor? And I'm not just talking about your birthday."

Mid-sentence, the thumping bass of the rock music comes to a sudden end, which means that Simon's mention of the birthday rings out loudly in the room, and there are ripples of laughter from the people at other tables. There is something in Simon's tone that jars in Sherlock's ear: an innuendo that he cannot understand.

He knows there are at least a dozen other people in the area; it won't help to close his eyes because he can still smell them. The combination of deodorants, liberally applied perfumes and sweat is almost enough to suffocate him. One thing does penetrate his consciousness: there are more men in the room than women, assuming his nose is correctly separating perfumes from aftershaves. His senses seem hyper-acute and mixing together; he's _feeling_ what he's sensing, especially the presence of Victor so near. He's the only familiar thing in the room and he tries to focus on that fact like a lifeline.

"Hey. You okay?" Victor's question is quiet; he's leaning close enough to Sherlock's ear that neither Simon nor Bryony are likely to be able to hear him over the cacophony of conversations at the other tables. Victor has also shed his jacket, loosened his collar. He extends an arm on the back of the sofa behind Sherlock.

When Sherlock leans back, the contact of that big arm grounds him, as does the familiar scent of his flatmate. It's oddly comforting, and enough to enable Sherlock to crack open a wary eye. "Fine."

He's so determined not to spoil this evening for Victor that he'll endure _anything_ —even this sensory torture—if spending time here is what Victor wants them to do together. That realisation brings Sherlock to the point of decision: he's been mulling over the possibility ever since they'd arrived in London, and now the choice is not only a blindingly obvious opportunity, but also an absolute necessity. If he is going to get through the night without making embarrassing Victor, he's going to need something to help him manage—something pharmacological. A club of this calibre should be expected to have plenty of dealers. _Needs must_.

"I'm going to find that gent's if you don't mind." Sherlock gets to his feet and heads off before Victor has time to react. Unlike Victor, he has a good memory of their route and had spotted the sign to the gents at the last turning before the entrance to the VIP lounge. From his days of living rough on the streets, he knows what to expect when he gets in there. He might not have been to a night club before, but he's been to enough pubs to know what to expect. The stench—a heady cocktail of piss, sweat and testosterone—is overpowering, so he grits his teeth to regain focus.

A quick scan of the men in the room tells him that at least two are dealing. He comes up to the first one, a tall, Afro-Caribbean man wearing a Nirvana T-shirt, who has just handed over a bag of something to another man. The dealer turns, sees Sherlock, and then slowly runs an eye up and down. It doesn't take a genius to know exactly what is going on in his head; the triumphantly ominous expression dawning on the man's features betrays his intentions. Sherlock has been in this situation before, but at least this time he has the money he needs to buy what he is looking for, rather than have to barter over sex.

Before the dealer can speak, he snaps, "What'll it cost me for a bag of molly**?"

"No powder; just sweeties. Two doves for ten minutes with you in there," is the reply from the dealer, cocking his head towards one of the stalls.

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "Pounds and pence; I'm not for rent."

"Pity." The big man is still giving him the once-over, before sighing. "Whoever he is, he's a lucky man; you're gorgeous. Fifty pounds, and don't bother asking the competition; he's not got any powder, either, and we're a cartel when it comes to price."*

Sherlock pulls notes from his wallet and takes possession. One thing that his time with Steven Mason had taught him is that Ecstasy can at least make his sensory issues tolerable. He has to get through this night without embarrassing Victor. He'd have preferred powdered MDMA, also known as _molly_ ; he'd have been more certain of its purity, and it would have been much faster acting. The tabs tend to be a lower content—probably only fifty to eighty milligrams—and after a meal like the one he has just eaten, they will likely take twenty minutes to have an effect. He just hopes he can last that long.

He dry-swallows the first one in the corridor and pockets the second. As he makes his way back to the VIP area through the crowds in the corridor, he wonders about the placebo effect of what he's just done. Anticipating the impact of the 3,4 methylene-dioxymethamphetamine seems to already have made him feel calmer even though he knows it'll take time for the adrenaline rush to abate and for the chemical to significantly alter his mental status. He decides to ignore the voice in the back of his head: the stentorian tones of his brother in full lecture mode about the dangers of drug abuse. He's no longer the teenager drugged without his consent; he can control this.

Just one night, so he can get through this without letting his defects ruin everything. Just this once, so that he can prove to Victor that he can manage. Victor already understands a lot about his situation; after all, Mycroft and that idiot Dryden had made sure that his autism diagnosis and his past drug issues came up within days of their first meeting. All that makes Sherlock even more determined to put it all behind him. _I can do this_. He can be a good friend for Victor, someone to share a flat and make plans for a future together. He wants that more than anything. Everything else in his life that could be categorised by others as good and constructive are just tolerable distractions: Victor is something, some _one_ he has found for himself, _by_ himself, and Mycroft's opinions be damned.

When he gets back to the table, Simon and Bryony are laughing together about something, so he gets a moment with Victor without them overhearing. He sits down beside Victor and finds that it's now much easier to give him what he hopes is a relaxed smile. "I'm feeling better now."

Bryony sits forward and crooks a finger at the two boys. "Time to put you two onto the dance floor."

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

When the first pulse of music of a new song emerges from the huge bank of speakers, Sherlock feels it before his brain even registers hearing it. Like a pressure on his chest, the sensation is then amplified by the rays of coloured lasers and rotating spotlights that stream out from the stage and from the projection room behind them to light up the crowd in the dark. The sensations threaten to overwhelm him, but Sherlock fixes his eyes on the one figure he trusts, leading their way through the heaving crowd: _Victor_. He knows that it's only a matter of time before the drug kicks in to let him filter the sensory storm. He has to hang on; _it will be all right_.

As the electronic bass beat begins to pound as though it was a hammer on his rib cage, what he is able to see of the people in the room surprises him. He is not sure what he'd been expecting since his idea of dancing is more focused on the classical forms. Dance classes had been one of the only things he had loved at Harrow, but what's going on here is hardly choreographed. The audience seems to only be moving their feet a little in time; instead of engaging in any discernible step patterns, their bodies are swaying and gyrating with the occasional arm gesture thrown in. It's hard to tell which dancers form couples; groups of men and women are all mixed up. People are moving in many different styles, none of which he recognises.

He leans up on his toes to shout in Victor's ear: "What are they dancing?"

Victor laughs, or at least Sherlock thinks he does, because he can't really hear it. Victor leans down, his mouth to Sherlock's ear and replies: "Whatever they want. Just watch me, and anyone else you like the look of, and copy it—or just let loose with something of your own."

Victor starts to move his feet and hips in time to the almost hypnotic rhythm, and Sherlock imitates what he's doing, feeling self-conscious at first. When the music changes into an overlay of electronic notes sounding almost like Morse code, then the crowd really begins to dance. The tempo changes every so often, but those basic electronic notes are like an anchor through whatever else is going on or the beat is doing. If he narrows his focus down to just that run of notes, it all becomes bearable, organised and he's able to follow the rhythmic patterns. Being able to move seems to shed some of the nervous energy from his earlier anxiety; that's what he has always done when anxiety gets the better of him: turned nervous energy into a kinetic variant. A glance around tells him that he's not making a fool of himself; the panic he'd felt when they first arrived is receding. No one seems to be paying attention to him apart from the occasional glance from fellow dancers, and those glances seem to be appreciative rather than mocking. It's hard to tell for sure because the darkness is only momentarily split by the laser beams.

Victor is watching him with such obvious pleasure that Sherlock is encouraged to experiment with a few moves of his own, adding in a spin turn and getting his hips into it with more authority. Memories of Latin American dance steps taught at Harrow re-surface; a salsa shoulder shimmy and something the dance teacher had laughingly called armography. It works here in such crowded conditions; hands and arms reaching up into the darkness, suddenly illuminated when a laser light spills out from the back of the room, setting off a kaleidoscope of colours in strobing time with the music.

By the third piece of music, the tension has evaporated completely from Sherlock as the E kicks in proper: the stream of sensation is slowing to a manageable trickle. It's a strange phenomenon; he's never understood why a stimulant allows him to control his sensory processing. It seems to split up the inputs from different sensory modalities, giving him time not just to make sense of them but to actually enjoy them. His mood lifts and he gives into it all, relishing the sense of complete control. This is what he loves about music; the kinaesthetic experience of movement, rhythm, tone and sensation, orderly and predictable. He feels calm yet energetic; such a contradiction should be anxiety-inducing but isn't. The music flows in and out of him; he feels as if his skin is porous and the sound moves right through him, super-charging every cell of his body. He knows this is the drug at work, but it's _so_ worth it to see the effect of his dancing on Victor. This he had not anticipated at all as a potential side effect of just trying to manage the sensory assault of the club. With Victor beside him, he's not even bothered by the rest of the crowd. People press in, sometimes trying to come between them but if he ignores them, they shift away.

When the strobing lights momentarily illuminate their area of the dance floor, he sees Victor looking right back at him with an unadulterated smile.

The current piece of music contains no lyrics apart from the occasional repeated, hypnotic phrase that is spoken rather than sung after each wave of crescendo. Sherlock has to agree. ' _Right here, right now'_ — there is nowhere else he'd rather be.

Bryony appears at Victor's shoulder as the fifth piece of music starts, and makes her intentions known by pointing at the exit back to the VIP area. Victor takes Sherlock by the hand and begins leading him through the surging crowd.

His grip is strong; they've never held hands before. It probably doesn't mean anything, but Sherlock relishes the moment anyway since he can't help remembering Bryony's words from their drive to the club. He should take them with a grain of salt—after all, relying on such conjecture might become a costly mistake if he has the wrong idea and Victor turns out to be appalled by the things he's undeniably begun feeling for the tall blond.

Heading back to the sanctuary, Victor lets go of his hand as he and Simon stop off at the gents, leaving Sherlock and Bryony to reclaim their seats.

"We've paid for the table, so might's well put it to use. It's important to take a break every once and a while." She is eying Sherlock carefully as he pops the buttons on his cuffs and rolls up the sleeves to just below the elbow. No need to show off the old scars, but on the other hand, he's boiling and needs to expose more skin to the air conditioning.

Bryony is smirking as she watches him. "You look like you could do with some water." She beckons Holly to the table and orders four half-litre bottles of sparkling water. "It's important to keep hydrated."

"I know."

She's still looking intently at him, and then smirks. "Yes, I can see that you do. Your pupils are the size of dinner plates, dear boy, and Victor isn't even in the room."

 _Busted._ Sherlock can feel his heart rate accelerate and can smell his sweat; Ecstasy raises body temperature. Suddenly worried by her realisation, he leans forward and says quietly, "Don't tell Victor."

That gets a laugh. "Relax, Sherlock. Your secret's safe with me. Or should I say secrets, plural?" she giggles a little.

He glances around the room and sees two men sharing a passionate embrace on a sofa off to the corner. His earlier rush of euphoria scatters to the wind, leaving him teetering on the brink of anxiety because he can feel himself responding to the sight of them. He does not want to frighten Victor off by losing control of his libido; their friendship is too important to him to risk overstepping the mark. He's starting to regret listening to Bryony earlier and getting his hopes up. "Does Victor realise that this is a gay club?"

"Of _course_ , he does," Bryony tells him. "He has eyes, you know. And it doesn't bother him; he's only got eyes for _you_. I haven't seen him look at a single woman here or on the dance floor, even though our girl Holly nearly sat on his lap earlier when you were in the loo. Don't be fooled by the macho jock exterior, or by the history with Chloe; I've seen plenty of guys like him swing both ways. That's what trophy wives are for!"

She leans closer, reaches into the pocket of her suit and pulls half way out a bag of blue pills so that Sherlock can peer down to see them, still concealed from the other patrons. "By the way, don't assume that your boy is a goody-two-shoes or wide-eyed in wonder at all that goes around here," she points out as she slides the bag back to the bottom of her pocket. "While you were in the loo, we convinced him to share our stash. According to Simon, Victor's been clubbing with Chloe for years in Cambridge, so he's seen her using. He's had to abstain in the past because of the rugby team drug tests, but he doesn't have to worry about that anymore. He took half a tab; not much, given his size but enough to relax him. Poor boy; he was beside himself that you weren't going to enjoy this evening, so he was easy to convince. I told him that if he managed to relax, you would follow suit. You _two_ …" she laughs. "You're both so sweet that you're tying yourselves in knots worrying about each other. You both need to just let go, let things _happen._ I convinced him that if he let loose a bit, it would help you the most. So he took half a tablet—not for his own sake, but for yours."

Sherlock sits back in surprise. He would never have guessed that Victor would take drugs. He seems such a _good_ person. He doesn't get mixed up in the sorts of stuff Sherlock has had to experience. "Why would he do that?"

Bryony takes a big swig of water from one of the bottles that has just been deposited by the waitress. When she's finished, she shrugs. "What? Care about what you are feeling? Christ, Sherlock, it's not that complicated! If you can't see it yourself, then just take my word for it; he's hot for you. You always overthink stuff like this?"

Before Sherlock can think through the implications of her statement, Simon and Victor reappear at the table. Sherlock is surprised to see that Victor has taken off his white dress shirt and is now only wearing the short-sleeved white T-shirt he'd had underneath. Sherlock's gaze lingers on the well-defined biceps that are now extremely obvious, and he's very aware that several of the other men in the VIP area have noticed exactly the same thing.

Simon exchanges a glance with Bryony and then taps his watch. "I hate to put a damper on things, but we've got an hour left here before we need to head out. We'll be dropping you off at my flat and then Bryony and I are heading off to Dover where we're booked on the shuttle. So, go get some heavy-duty dancing in before then, you two. You could always come back tomorrow night on your own, if you are enjoying this."

Victor doesn't even sit down. He extends a hand to Sherlock, who takes it and gets pulled to his feet. As they begin making their way back towards the crowd gyrating to the music, Bryony tosses Victor one of the water bottles which he finishes before they're even left the VIP area.

"Get down to business, boys," Bryony orders with a smirk.

Feeling practically drunk on the idea that Victor wants to dance with him some more, Sherlock follows him back into the crowd.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Whatever genius DJ is working the table, Victor can only thank him for choosing a set that really hits the moment he is living through. Thanks to Chloe's insistence on spending a sizable chunk of his money and a good deal of his time at Cambridge's various dance clubs, he recognises a surprising amount of the current trending hits; Sonique's _It Feels So Good_ is on as they get onto the floor. Victor watches as Sherlock loosens those long limbs of his, latching onto the rhythm and the mood as if he is somehow hearing something that other people can't. He stares in admiration at how lithe and agile Sherlock is; his dancing is as light as air and fluid as water, making Victor feel like some earthbound clod, clumping about in the darkness. The crush of bodies and the heat of the place make him break out in a sweat; or maybe it's just the sight of Sherlock getting into the groove that does it.

The next part of the set starts with an old classic of Moby's _Every Time You Touch Me_. If people had noticed Sherlock's dancing before the break, now it's like the boy is magnetic. Eyes are pulled away from their usual focus on the stage action to watch his moves. When a bright blue light erupts over the floor from the back, Victor can see that Sherlock's eyes are closed, but somehow, he knows exactly where Victor is, and is moving in response to his steps, even though there is a foot or more of space between them. _How does he do that?_ As the music shifts to the instrumental gap between the verse and the chorus, Sherlock throws his head back and lets it roll it over his shoulders from left to right, exposing that long pale neck. The heat is getting to him, too; there are three darker curls plastered to his shining forehead and his exposed skin gleams silver when the lasers cut through the dark.

Sonique's sultry voice pours out of the speakers:

 _Won't you understand, how I feel deep inside_  
 _Uh huh, you make me feel, what I need to feel_  
 _In my heart_

As the music shifts a gear, Sherlock snaps his head back down and dances backward, dipping a shoulder and extending a hand in a graceful gesture, beckoning Victor forward, moving the pair of them deeper into the crowd, just as Sonique launches into the chorus:

 _Your love it feels so good_  
 _And that's what takes me high_  
 _Higher than I've been before_  
 _Your love it keeps me alive_  
 _Thought I should let you know_

It takes his breath away to see Sherlock so uninhibited, just letting loose. Victor had never dreamed that this would be his reaction. Sherlock had seemed so intimated by the sensory impact of all the noise and the crowds of the club scene, practically aghast when they'd first arrived, that Victor had been preparing to make excuses to Simon for what would surely be an early exit. Once again, he realises that he's underestimated Sherlock's resilience. The boy appears to have found a way to make the music itself be his anchor through the maelstrom of sensation, and he's letting his body dance its way into the moment.

 _This is Sherlock like I've never seen him before._ And Victor likes what he sees. More than he would have liked to admit just a few months prior. Now, there's no denying it.

As the music ramps up even more, Victor's eye gets fixated on the third button of Sherlock's dark blue dress shirt. The cycling and better eating mean his pectoral muscles are torturing that button into straining. Victor gets the giggles at the thought of it bursting open, so he dances closer and then reaches over to release the button from its bondage.

Sherlock's eyes snap down at the sight of Victor's fingers on his chest, and then he smiles when he sees what Victor is doing. As soon as yet more of the pale skin is revealed, he dances away as if enjoying the freedom to move even more freely.

Unfortunately, Sherlock also catches the eye of several other men in the immediate vicinity. One, a shorter guy with the build of a wrestler, takes it upon himself to step close beside Sherlock, trying to draw attention to himself. As the singer hits the high notes of the bridge of the song, the intruder reaches out and claps a hand on Sherlock's shoulder to try to turn him sideways. Sherlock flinches violently, loses his footing and nearly goes down. Victor springs forward and catches an arm flailing for balance while he shoves the other bloke away from his friend. Reflexively, Victor pulls Sherlock's back tight against his own chest and drops his big arms over the boy's shoulders, sliding them down protectively around him. When the intruder doesn't disappear back into the crowd but hovers menacingly close, Victor spits out " _Fuck off!"_ at the man, loud enough to be heard over the start of the chorus.

The ill-fated suitor raises his arms in a placating gesture and mouths a 'sorry' as the music reaches its final crescendo. He then shifts back into the crowd and out of sight. Victor expects Sherlock to break their contact now that the incident is over but instead, he leans back into Victor, clearly rattled; his fingertips perch on the forearms enveloping him before they curl to grip the muscles—at first tentatively, then more tightly—as though encouraged by the fact that Victor isn't retreating.

As the video screens around the hall flash back to the end of the video and the final chords die away, Victor lowers his chin close to Sherlock's shoulder to ask quietly, "You okay?"

He can feel the nod. Those black, lush curls are now pressed up against the side of Victor's neck, and he can't resist burying his nose in them. Sherlock doesn't move away. His hands drop from Victor's arms and his head tips slightly away, revealing more of his neck.

"Do you want to go?" Victor whispers.

"Depends on the next song", is the baritone answer.

As if the DJ had heard him, the first strains of another song emerge from the wall of speakers. The video screens all around the hall show the title, _When I Get Close to You._ Victor says, "This was a big hit last autumn."

Sherlock turns around to face him, and Victor lets his arms drop, expecting him to want more space to move. Instead, Sherlock averts his gaze almost shyly while reaching his hands around Victor's neck. It surprises him; he's always thought that Sherlock finds body contact unsettling, something he has to prepare for and endure without any enjoyment. He'd said as much when they'd started a habit of massaging tired, cramping muscles after long bicycle rides. Sherlock's reaction to the unexpected contact with that other dancer was what Victor has come to expect, not–– _this_. Nervous and tempted, he studies Sherlock's expression and then attempts what Chloe would expect him to do at this point—to put his hands on his partner's hips. This might well be what crosses a line, and Victor would never want to be the one to make Sherlock uncomfortable.

He does stay alarmingly still as Victor's hands find a steady purchase on his hipbones.

The instrumental introduction of the music ends, and the Filipino vocalist lets loose:

 _When I first looked in your eyes_  
 _I began to fantasize_  
 _About you touching me_  
 _Watching you imagine me_  
 _All the pleasures that you bring_  
 _What's coming over me?_

Eyes locked, they have both remained still and listening intently. Sherlock's pupils are blown, reflecting the lasers sweeping the crowd. Carefully, Victor tightens his hold, bringing Sherlock closer to him, stopping instantly when he feels a bit of resistance. Instead of relaxing, Sherlock stiffens a little more, then starts to step back, shaking his head. Without thinking, Victor grabs a retreating arm and takes a hasty step closer to get his mouth right by Sherlock's ear so that he will be able to hear.

Needing to prevent Sherlock from leaving means that Victor has no time to think carefully about what he's going to say. "Sherlock, please say that I've not read you wrong," he pleads, "Is this something you want? God, I hope so, because _I do_."

A split second later, Victor cannot believe he's heard himself say such a thing.

They're frozen, still in the midst of the rippling crowd, both appearing to be suspended in awe and surprise, oblivious to their surroundings, shocked still by the revelation in Victor's words. He can tell Sherlock's mind is traveling a million miles a minute, deductions and suspicions and doubt and hope vying for attention in the wary look he's giving Victor who is still gripping Sherlock's arm which has gone listless from surprise.

Finally, Sherlock breaks eye contact to sweep an unseeing glance around their surroundings, then looks back at Victor, his blue eyes startled. "How is that even possible?" he shouts, the words barely audible over the music.

Victor's stomach is in knots because he can't tell if he's done the wrong thing or a very right thing.

He leans in so that Sherlock can hear him. "Bloody good question, and I'm not going to continue shouting here about it. Let's go," he prompts, giving Sherlock's arm a little shake to jolt him into action.

He follows Victor out of the crowd.

 **o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o**

The journey from Charing Cross to Docklands is filled with the sound of yet more dance music coming from the Maserati's sound system. Bryony's slipped in Madonna's latest CD, simply titled _Music_ , and the title track is playing at a volume that makes conversation impossible.

To be able to fit in the backseat of the sports car, Victor has to sit sideways, his back to side of the car and his long legs stretched to the left with his feet down into the foot well in front of Sherlock. Sherlock's knees are up against the back of Bryony's seat, giving Victor the space he needs. His gaze is resolutely forward, avoiding eye contact, but he seems to be blinking a lot. Perhaps the bright lights of the oncoming traffic are bothering him?

Victor spends the entire journey convinced that he's just wrecked the most important friendship of his life. At no point has Sherlock ever shown the slightest interest in anything sexual from him, and in these precious minutes, Victor thinks he must be reassessing their entire relationship. He had looked shell-shocked at what Victor had said, and all hope that he might not have understood his meaning is lost, judging by how strongly he'd reacted. Maybe Sherlock truly isn't interested in anything like that, with _anyone_ , and now he thinks Victor is just like every other bloke, that this has been the disappointing endgame all along; trying to get Sherlock to do something for which he has no desire. Victor desperately needs to talk to him, to explain, to reassure him it doesn't have to mean anything––

 _Damn that drug!_ Victor remembers well how Chloe has behaved when under the influence; it loosens inhibitions. He had turned a blind eye, blaming the drug on her transgressions, but his own experience tonight proves that he had just been lying to himself. Ecstasy or no Ecstasy, he had meant every word he'd said to Sherlock tonight—which is why he should have kept his mouth shut. Whatever his feelings are for Sherlock, they shouldn't have come out like this. Most likely they shouldn't have come out, period, even if he has plenty of them, as tonight has proven.

But, he couldn't help himself. What could only be described as his emotional re-awakening after he finally broke things up with Chloe has let loose a barrage of emotion that has been growing. Slowly but surely, something's been happening that he's not wanted to acknowledge consciously over the past months.

He's fallen in love with Sherlock.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

*Heaven still exists today.

**"Molly" is a street name for MDMA in powder form (remember that Sherlock hasn't met Molly Hooper yet, LOL). Anyone who thinks £25 a tablet of ecstasy is expensive should keep in mind that this is 2001. Back then, it WAS expensive; now, a tablet can cost only £5.

This is the one chapter in the one story of mine that actually demands a playlist. I am prohibited by FF from including the YouTube links. The first song mentioned is Darude's Sandstorm. The second, when Sherlock's Ecstasy kicks in is Fatboy Slim's Right Here Right Now. When they return to the dance floor, things kick up a notch with Moby's Every Time You Touch Me. The Moby classic is then followed by Sonique's It feels so good. The song that prompts Victor's revelation is Jocelyn Enriquez's When I Get Close to You.

My special thanks to J. Baillier for her assistance in plundering YouTube and various other websites for suitable dance club hits of 1999, 2000, and 2001. She tells me it was a delightful trip down memory lane since some of these tracks were a part of the soundscape of her own club escapades around the turn of the Millennium... Way after my days, I have to say. I'm now more likely to be seen squired around a dance floor doing the Argentine tango with my husband.


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter 27: Confessions**

* * *

Simon dangles a set of keys from his forefinger; they're in the foyer of the flat on the seventh floor of the West Quay Podium building. Bryony had stayed in the Maserati to keep the traffic wardens from objecting about parking on the double yellow lines .

" _Mi casa es su casa_ , as the saying goes. The place is all yours until Monday. You have to be gone by three p.m., which is when the cleaner comes in. _You break it, you buy it_ , is the other slogan. Try not to trash the place unless you want to be making a grovelling apology to me and leaving a very generous tip for her. Don't touch my clothes, but otherwise treat the place as home. There is food, wine, beer, et cetera, et cetera. Plenty of takeaway menus in the kitchen if you can't be arsed to cook or go out." He laughs.

"I've left a phone number for the building management on the fridge if the shower springs a leak or something. Victor—you've got my mobile number but remember that we're in France and not bloody Croydon, so only in emergencies, and I'm not coming back to bail the two of you out of jail. Have fun but be safe, or your dad will kill me."

As Simon hands over the keys, he gives Victor a friendly slap on the shoulder; "Happy birthday, Coz," and then he's out of the door and striding down the carpeted hall towards the elevator.

Victor doesn't quite shut the door yet; he wants to be sure that Simon is really gone for good before he tackles the problem that is standing a few feet away, looking a bit lost.

Sherlock is still looking everywhere but at him, pretending to be inspecting the foyer, and his behaviour is worrying the hell out of Victor. Gone is the way he'd relaxed and enjoyed himself at the club; he hadn't said a word during the car ride, or when Simon took them up to the flat. Every bit of him seems to be humming with tight, nervous energy as though preparing to flee.

Victor hears the ping announcing the lift's arrival. The doors open and then close. When a quiet whirr signals that the cabin is going well and truly down, he shuts the flat door with a soft click.

 _At last._ He takes a deep breath, lips pursed.

Sherlock is standing by a console table where the foyer opens into the sitting room, looking distant and distressed. His hands are shoved into pockets, shoulders tightly hunched. Swallowing, Victor reaches out to take his arm, but the boy reflexively steps away. The rigidity in Sherlock's stance, a stiffness in his sinews, contrasts almost cruelly with the fluidity of his movements on the dance floor.

Victor reaches out again and takes a step closer. "Sherlock…" he tries, but the only reply is a shake of the curly head. Again, his companion slips out of his reach. _He couldn't look more evasive if he tried_.

Finally, Sherlock's eyes narrow with steely determination. He perches his fingertips on the console table in the hall, and gives a pen left on it a roll across the surface, back and forth, back and forth, staring at it intently. In a flat monotone, eyes still fixed on the object, he says: "Don't. There is something you need to understand about Ecstasy. It loosens inhibitions, stimulates the libido, inspires one to act uncharacteristically; it makes people reckless. You haven't had sex for about fifteen weeks, so proximity and availability may be prompting you to think something is real that isn't actually true _for you_."

Victor doesn't fail to notice the pointed nature of those last words. Hasn't Sherlock noticed what's been going on, how close the two of them have gotten lately? "So, you think it was the drugs talking, what I said?" Victor is surprised.

"Facts are facts, and no amount of wishing can change them." Sherlock still won't look at him.

"What do you mean, _wishing?_ I think you're making false assumptions about me, whereas I don't think I'm making them about you."

Sherlock shakes his head. "I'm trying to be rational, logical about this. E affects people differently. Tomorrow, when the drug has worn off, you might not even remember this conversation. Or, you might want to _pretend_ that you don't remember it, or anything that you are imagining might be about to happen." His voice has gone up in pitch and he's speaking fast, as though trying to get the conversation over with as quickly as he can. "It's probably for the best that you do try to forget tonight, even if you _can_ remember. Or pretend, it's all the same to me, as long as you just stop––It'll be less embarrassing all round, pretending nothing happened. And nothing is going to happen, anyway, because you don't want––people don't––because you couldn't possibly––" Sherlock snaps his mouth shut, looking ready to bolt.

Victor steps between him and the door into the living area to block his exit. "Sherlock, I'm not wrong about this, I can't be. I think I know how you feel about me."

This finally makes Sherlock meet his gaze. His eyes are blazing with anger, now, instead of embarrassment. He snaps, "What I might feel and what I choose to do about it are two different things. I'm not going to make a fool of myself. I'm gay and you're not. Those facts cannot be altered."

Victor's heard enough. He takes a stride closer and gently takes hold of Sherlock's shoulders, gives a gentle squeeze, hoping to melt away some of tenseness there. There is resistance at first, but then with a sigh, Sherlock allows himself to be pulled closer, perhaps because this allows him to stop looking Victor in the eye.

"Please don't make this harder for me. It's not fair." Sherlock's words are quiet, almost a whisper.

Victor is utterly terrified of what he is about to say, but equally devastated by what will happen if he doesn't tell the truth, a truth he knows he's been evading for far too long. He slides his palms up from the shoulders to cup Sherlock's face, strokes the tip of a thumb across those amazing cheekbones and lifts Sherlock's head gently until he can look into those captivating but suddenly fathomlessly sad blue-green eyes.

Taking a deep breath when he sees those eyes begin to glisten with unshed tears, Victor realises that hesitating now might cost him everything he wants, so he dives in: "Okay. So. This is me telling you that I'm bi, I mean––I'm bisexual. I can get turned on by both women and men, and I _have_ been turned on by both, before. I never wanted to admit it to myself or to anyone else, because I thought I could sort of get away with it, forget the whole thing because there's always been Chloe. It's been easy passing as straight, to lie to myself that what I've felt once or maybe twice for a guy was just a passing phase, a schoolboy mistake, just something that happens in a boarding school but doesn't mean anything. It was also one of the reasons why I surrounded myself with the big lumbering idiots who play rugby; not my type. They don't do anything for me, so hey—no awkwardness in the locker room. I was—I _am_ —bloody scared because of what my father would say if I came out. I've been a coward, just coasting along because there was no one worth turning my whole world upside down for, and Chloe was…alright. She was enough, until I realised that most of all, I'd been lying to myself about her. Who she is. What she's like."

Now, Victor wants to bite his tongue; ranting about Chloe is not going to get this conversation headed where it needs to go. But, she's like the elephant in the room that Sherlock won't stop seeing. This is not going to be a carefully rehearsed speech, because Victor has hardly had a lot of time to prepare for such a conversation. Well, maybe he _should_ have thought this through, but the fact that he hasn't just goes to show how habitual it has become to keep up a facade.

That habit stops tonight. He's not losing Sherlock because he can't pluck up the courage to be honest about how he feels.

"Like I said, there's never been anyone worth taking the plunge. Until you. But, you need to understand something, Sherlock. What I feel for you isn't the Ecstasy, it isn't about just sex. We've been friends first, before any of this––" he lets his hand trail down to where Sherlock's long neck meets his shoulder, "––occurred to either of us. At least for me that came a bit later. And I think it did for you, too."

Sherlock nods, but says nothing. Doesn't confirm or deny in words whether there was initial attraction. He still looks tense, and Victor can't really blame him. What has happened tonight is a lot to take in for both of them.

Victor knows he has only moments to make sure this conversation doesn't ruin everything. "I want you, in a way that I never did Chloe. Every time I think about the nearly five years I spent trying to pretend that she was enough for me, it makes me angry. What a fucking waste! Being with her didn't change the fact that I looked at some boys way beyond what I would have if I was just being friendly. And I can still look at a girl's tits and think they are attractive," he adds, then realises it really isn't what Sherlock wants to hear at all. Flaunting the fact that he could still go back to dating women is the opposite of what Victor wants him to understand right now.

"None of that matters in the slightest," Victor stresses. "It doesn't even begin to explain the way I feel about you. And it sure as hell has been going on for months before I took an E." He releases Sherlock's face and shifts his hands down to rest gently on his shoulders; he has to give the boy a chance to make up his own mind about this. When he doesn't move or shift his gaze away, Victor tips his head down and touches his lips gently to that perfect cupid bow before shifting slightly lower for a more intense kiss.

There is resistance at first, a stiffening of Sherlock's whole body, but Victor does not give up. He breathes through his nose and lets the intensifying contact take shape and warmth. His hands can feel slight tremors in Sherlock's body, and there is a sound—impossible to categorise whether it is a sob or a moan, but it seems to come from somewhere deep in his chest. Suddenly, the resistance is gone, and Sherlock's palms are sliding up Victor's back to his shoulder blades, bringing the two of them closer together. The kiss is now being returned with fervour; perhaps a bit too much, as there is a clash of teeth when Sherlock opens his mouth. He pulls back, a bit embarrassed and they both wet their lips before resuming. Victor slides the fingers of his left hand into the curls at the nape of Sherlock's neck, pulling him even deeper into the kiss as the boy finally melts completely into the full-on embrace. Sherlock's hands slide lower, lock around Victor's waist, and now there is no hiding the fact that both of them are getting aroused. The layers of fabric in trousers and pants cannot disguise the evidence, and Victor can no longer resist the temptation to move his right hand below the delicious curve of Sherlock's lower back, and then to spread his palm across that amazing arse that he's been coveting ever since they took up cycling. When he tightens his grip, Sherlock's breath hitches as their groins are pressed together. The contact becomes rhythmic, the friction accelerating Victor's breathing as well, forcing him to break the kiss to come up for air. When he leans in to press their lips together again, the hands that had again been grabbing onto his waist are brought back between them, forming fists against Victor's chest as Sherlock pushes him away a bit and dodges the kiss. His face is only inches from Victor's and the intensity in his eyes seems to almost spark.

"Are you sure? Really sure? Because if you aren't, then we shouldn't do this. I… don't think I will want to stop if we go any further." Sherlock's words are quiet, apologetic, needing reassurance.

Victor feels like his head is positively swimming with arousal and incredulous happiness. Now, if he could only get Sherlock to stop trying to take responsibility for both their decision-making–– "I've never been so sure about anything in my life. I've been worried that maybe you wouldn't… you know, want this kind of thing, with me or with anyone."

Sherlock's face is already flushed, but now those cheeks are reddening even more. "I'm not a virgin." There is the slightest tinge of indignation in his tone.

Victor tries to suppress a smile. "Well, I've not been with a bloke properly so it's good if you can show me the ropes."

Something flickers across Sherlock's eyes, the briefest of shadows. "Well, my experiences haven't been all that great. But maybe… I think it could be different… if it's with you." The look he gives Victor makes this seem like a question.

Victor's answer is to kiss him again, and this time Sherlock gives as good as he's getting. There is a tease of a tongue, and Victor isn't even sure which of them starts it; all he knows is that he doesn't want it to stop. Sherlock's hands have slipped back to his waist, and nimble fingers are now at work undoing the leather belt, opening the button and pulling the zip. Victor starts working Sherlock's jacket off his shoulders; he wants to get back to those straining shirt buttons but can't, because Sherlock is in motion, sliding Victor's pants and trousers down to his knees with the determination of someone who clearly knows what they're doing.

Victor closes his eyes reflexively, wanting to savour the sensation that's setting off fireworks on the back of his eyelids.

"You're _amazing_ ," Sherlock murmurs, sounding genuinely awed, even surprised. Surprised at what is finally happening? Surely Victor couldn't have managed to conceal his feelings this thoroughly from him? God, how close they'd come to never getting to this moment.

He leans back against the wall as he gives into the tidal wave of sexual pleasure. With his trousers and pants around his ankles, he is effectively hobbled and can do nothing but let Sherlock continue.

Not that he's in any way wanting this to stop. The sight of Sherlock right now is just so startlingly, stunningly erotic. Chloe had never liked oral sex much. She used to argue: "What's in it for me? I'd rather do something together where we both get off at the same time." And she wasn't even keen on having it done to her, either, insisting that: "I guess I just prefer the feel of you in me." When her half-hearted attempts at it had started to feel like some contractual obligation, he'd dismissed it from their repertoire. Sometimes he even suspected she may have been faking some of her orgasms.

As Sherlock continues his exploration, it's easy for Victor to shove Chloe out of his thoughts. He stops thinking at all, closes his eyes, just surrenders.

Almost reverently, Sherlock murmurs, "Beautiful, like the rest of you." He presses the side of his cheek onto Victor's right thigh, the barely-there stubble on his chin rasping gently across Victor's inner thigh. Opening his eyes to watch, Victor sees Sherlock draw in a deep breath through his nose, taking in what Victor knows will be the sweaty scent left from their dancing as if it were the most exquisite masculine perfume. "You're everything I thought you'd be. _Magnificent._ "

Victor's eyes are prickling with tears; he's never, ever been adored like this. What the hell could he even reply to such a thing?

He brings both of his hands down to tangle his fingers in Sherlock's curls and finally manages to gasp some words out: "Shouldn't be this one-sided. Let me do something for you."

" _No._ Let me spoil you."

Sherlock kicks up the intensity, working his magic in a slowly but steadily accelerating rhythm. Each touch is repeated just often enough to form a pattern that Victor's nerves can barely react to before it is changed. It's like riding a wild wave of sensation; no sooner does he get into the rhythm of it than it dips and swells off in a different direction and he has to start all over again. His body is being played as if it is a musical instrument, and Sherlock is a _virtuoso_. This is no quick, sloppily constructed pop song; the music in his body is building and then being purposefully allowed to ebb into a quieter strain, before returning to another not-quite-but-almost crescendo. Victor can't resist the temptation to thrust his hips forward; he wants more. _Needs_ more.

Victor's whole body is engaged, his muscles tightening as if they have a will of their own, driven by something way out of his conscious control. He is panting, now, and the sounds emerging from his throat are something so primitive that he hardly recognises them as his own. He throws his head back to the point where it thumps against the wall, but hardly feels it because of what is building inside him.

Somehow, perceptive as ever, Sherlock senses the point of no return; the moment when Victor has reached peak stimulation; the tipping point.

Everything _stops_.

After such intense stimulation, the total absence of it is profoundly shocking to his body. Victor's sure he's going to expire; there is no sensation in his body except the release. There's nothing to deflect his focus, as wave after wave takes him into oblivion.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

By the time Sherlock stands up, he's already turning towards the half-opened door to the living room. He feels an urgency to get away now that it's all over and done with. Unsurprising,his conditioned reflex has always been to get away as soon as possible after the other person has been satisfied. The last thing he's ever wanted to do is spend more time in the presence of the dealers or whoever he's just been paid to have sex with. Whatever his own state of arousal might or might not have been, as soon as the other one came, it wiped the slate clean, and generally speaking Sherlock lost what little interest might have stirred in his body. _Job done, drugs or money to purchase said drugs pocketed, escape_.

"Wait. Don't go."

Victor's words catch Sherlock off guard. With a pang, he realises that he's going to have to change a lot of his thinking now that he's done a sexual favour that hasn't been just an exchange of services of goods. He had _wanted_ to do this to Victor, to give the boy what he wants. But... what does _he_ want, now? He feels exactly the same as he had before; desire a distant hum in his bones, a restlessness in his blood he's used to ignoring as something pedestrian and downright risky to give in to.

Suddenly, it's all become very complicated, and he wants to squirm out of his body, to leave behind the need that's clouding his judgement.

"Where are you going?" Victor asks, sounding both incredulous and confused.

Sherlock's peripheral vision catches sight of him, sagged against the wall. He shifts on his feet by the living room door to glance at Victor; the blissed-out expression he'd just been wearing has been replaced by concern.

Drawing a deep breath, Sherlock turns back and offers a tentative smile. That's what someone's supposed to do at this stage, isn't it? Show interest and offer to re-connect? He's lost at sea; never worked on a script to handle this sort of situation before. Not once has he considered what happens now; all his fantasies have always dissipated into thin air at the moment of climax, because he has never had sex with a person who would have given a fuck about his feelings. While there have been more than enough fantasies about Victor running through his head since Christmas, it shouldn't be this scary that they might be coming true. And yet, somehow, it is just that terrifying. What will happen if Victor is disappointed with him? Everyone he's ever had sex with was only interested in their own orgasms; nobody's really given a damn about his satisfaction or lack of it. What happens if he isn't able to do what is expected of him?

He stalls by asking a question, "Are you okay?"

That gets a laugh. "No. Not _okay._ That word is way too insignificant to cover what you just did." Victor has gotten to his feet and is pulling up his pants and trousers in an obvious effort to look a little less… wrecked.

Sherlock crosses his arms. "Well, good, then, I guess." A part of him wants to go to Victor, to touch parts of him he has merely admired from afar, to have those arms around him, but in the past this—sex with someone—has only been okay as long as they don't know anything about him, can't get under his skin and into his head. As long as he sticks to the script and his role, it can be pushed aside, compartmentalised. As long as no one asks what he wants or even if he wanted anything at all in the first place apart from drugs or money, Sherlock has been able to control things. Faced with the realistic possibility of having something entirely different, he wonders what losing control might be like.

He tries to perk up his smile, to look as happy as Victor does right now. Things are going well by all accounts, but what the hell do they do, _now_? His knowledge base has been exhausted and the rest is alien territory.

"I need to return the favour. Come here."

Sherlock glances back into the dark living room behind him, trying to remember what Simon had said about the layout of the flat. "Perhaps it would be wise to find a bedroom?" He hastily grabs the backpack off the floor and retreats into the darkness.

Behind him, Victor gets to his feet and after a few steps in pursuit is soon fumbling for a switch.

"Wait," Sherlock tells him, because the living room is already dimly illuminated by the lights of the countless numbers of windows in the high-rise buildings of Canary Wharf. Between and below, there are twinkling lights on the banks of dark ribbon that must be the Thames River. It's a beautiful sight and after Sherlock dumps the backpack, he can't help but be drawn over to the window. Victor gives up on the overhead lights but manages to find a switch for a table lamp. As a result, reflections appear on the window in front of Sherlock: gleaming chrome and black leather sofa suite, glass of a coffee table and on the dining table, too. There is an open plan kitchen, the all-black cabinets giving it a sleek, almost ship-like feel to the place.

"Simon's doing rather well for himself; this place must be costing a fortune." Victor has come up behind Sherlock to share the view.

"Bonuses in the City can be exceedingly generous." Sherlock knows this because on occasion, he has had dealings with young men in finance who have money to blow on drugs and a good time.

"Well, it's all ours to enjoy this weekend, a bit of a trip to fantasy land before returning to the life of poor students." Victor puts one of his big hands on Sherlock's shoulder to turn him until they are face-to-face again. "Rather than look at the view out there, I'd rather look at you— preferably without any clothes on, in that bedroom you wanted to find. And then, after that, we both need to sleep. All that dancing has left me knackered."

 _'I'd rather look at you'_ —a statement impossible for Sherlock to decipher, even with the additional explanation that most certainly has to point to sex. Is this a different definition of the phrase? No one would be interested in just looking at him. Perhaps Victor was—is—expecting more from him than what has just happened? Maybe Victor has a specific act in mind; should he ask? Being specific would be easier for Sherlock to manage than trying to guess. He has no experience of intimacy other than sex, and the number of times he'd been taken out of an alley, a gent's or some other insalubrious place to an actual bedroom he can count on one hand. Anxiety is taking hold of his mind.

Victor seems to be hesitating, a hand still perched on Sherlock's shoulder. "Should I be asking if _you're_ okay?"

"Fine," Sherlock answers. _Too fast, too brusque_. He knows that what is adding to his anxiety is the fact that he's coming down from the Ecstasy. If the drug stops mediating his sensory issues when he's already on edge because he has no idea how to pick his way through the mine field that Victor is opening up in front of him, it's possible he'll get completely overwhelmed. What if Victor expects him to enjoy himself, and he can't? Would he think it's due to a lack of interest on Sherlock's part—patently untrue—or just incompetence? Victor is the one who has been having regular sex for years with someone whose company he enjoys. He should know how this works, but Sherlock can't ask him, because why would Victor waste his time with someone lacking such elementary knowledge?

"Sherlock?"

He comes out of his daze and realises that Victor is waiting for him, hand extended expectantly. Taking a deep breath and trying not to panic, Sherlock swallows and offers his own. Holding hands is the smallest of gestures and bordering on chaste, but it hasn't stopped filling Sherlock with awe that it is actually happening.

Down the short hallway leading off the living room, they find a loo, a small bedroom that has been turned into an office by Simon, and then the master bedroom complete with an en suite wet room.

"Perfect." Victor pulls Sherlock into a gentle embrace, crossing his fingers around the small of his back. "You, I mean. The room's not bad, either."

Sherlock's gaze sweeps the room before looking back at Victor. "At least the bed is big enough for you." It appears to be nothing less than super king size.

Victor flops down on it and opens his arms. "You mean, for two. Bring those buttons to me so I can keep undoing them."

Sherlock freezes. "I… really need to take a shower first. I'm disgusting after the dancing."

Surprise flits through Victor's features before starting to flirt with mischief. "Well, you didn't mind a minute ago, and I sure don't. Or, actually, let's shower together!" Victor sits up, clearly keen and pleased with himself. He starts to get his feet back on the floor.

"I'd rather do it on my own," Sherlock hastily counters.

Victor's hands, already tugging up the hem of his T-shirt in preparation to pulling it off, stop and he lets go of the fabric. He's frowning. "Why?"

Sherlock looks away from him towards the bathroom. "Because I'm not like you." _Oh, God; now I've done it._ Blurting out something like this is just _so_ not what he wanted to do. Pointing out his obvious defects could hardly be considered a come-on. He knows showering together can be considered foreplay—Chloe and Victor used to do it, but it's never been part of what people want from him. Sometimes they told him to shower beforehand and complained if they thought he took too long doing it.

Trying to rescue the situation, he tries to explain: "You spend so much time in locker rooms and showers that you probably don't even think about it. But, for me, coping with the feel of the water on my skin is difficult enough I prefer baths to showers for that reason, and if there was someone else in the shower there'd be even more sensation to cope with and that's––you tend to complain that I take a long time in the bath and I don't think you'll want to wait, now, so, shower it is. Add another person into the mix and, well… I think it might be a bit… too much for me." He's embarrassed that everything is just tumbling out of his mouth at top speed—except for the last bit which creeps out like an unwanted confession. Unbidden, his right hand has come up to place fingers against his lips, as if to stop anything else coming out.

At the start of this admission of his weaknesses, disappointment had flickered briefly in Victor's eyes, but as Sherlock continued, it's been replaced by concern. Victor sits back on the edge of the bed, and nods slowly. "I had a hunch it's been a pretty tough night for you. I can't believe how well you coped with the night club stuff; once we got in there, I was sure it would just be overwhelming, but you were really great. It was a fabulous evening." He gives a slightly self-conscious laugh. "Especially the surprise just now. You being with me? Like that? Best birthday _ever_. And I don't want it to end just yet," he adds in a tone even Sherlock in his current state can decipher as hopeful.

That seems to confirm what Sherlock has been suspecting; Victor wants to take this further. Before he can say anything more, Sherlock interjects: "Why not look for lubricant and other stuff we might need while I'm in there? Simon's probably the sort that will keep all that in the bedside cabinet. I won't be long."

He slips into the en suite before Victor gets a reply in. Just before he'd pivoted on his heel and strode out of the bedroom, the look on Victor's face had been slightly incredulous.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Once the water is running hot, Sherlock strips off his clothes quickly and gets in. He had not been exaggerating to Victor about not liking showers; unless there's a showerhead that splits the flow into a softer spray, the needles of water drumming on his skin set up a negative neural feedback loop. Simon's luxurious power shower has numerous settings, and Sherlock is quick to dial it down to the mildest level. Thanks to the ample pressure in the new plumbing of the high-rise, even this still triggers an instant bout of synaesthesia. He tries to counter the prickling feeling by rubbing on shower gel which, according to the bottle, should smell of sandalwood, but only serves to bring a sharp acidic and metallic taste into his mouth. _Synaesthesia kicking in._ He's got to do this fast or the cumulative effects are going to make it almost impossible for him to manage more contact with Victor. This sex thing with Victor is so _new_ that not knowing how to act is draining precious concentration that he desperately needs to combat the sensory overload. He's known for quite some time how physically attracted to Victor he is; in fact, he'd been so aroused when they were dancing that he'd been temporarily able to shove aside his concerns.

That fact makes him pause for thought. The effects of the Ecstasy are now ebbing away fast, and they must have factored in to how well everything had gone at the club. He looks down at the puddle of clothing on the floor outside of the shower and is suddenly very aware of the fact that the second tablet is in the back pocket of his trousers. Should he take it? Will it help get him through what more Victor might want from him tonight? Can the Ecstasy silence his head so that his body can take over?

 _Yes._ It's his best and only option of not messing everything up.

He quickly finishes the shower, deciding against washing his hair, and steps out of the glass-partitioned shower corner. He wraps a large, blissfully soft towel around his torso, then recovers the E from his trousers. This time he even has the luxury of a glass of water to help the tablet go down his throat.

He takes his time drying himself off—he needs to scrunch rather than rub his hair dry lest it turn into a frilly cloud—counting the minutes down until the top-up eases his anxiety. If Victor isn't in a hurry, the timing should work.

By the time he's ready to return to the bedroom, he's feeling much better. Deciding against putting his clothes back on—after all, Victor had made his intentions perfectly clear—he feels somewhat prepared as he walks, naked and shower fresh, back into the darkened bedroom.

As his eyes re-adjust to the dim light, Sherlock realises that Victor is sound asleep.


	28. Chapter 28

**Chapter 28 Connections**

* * *

As Sherlock listens to the sound of Victor's deep breathing, he is utterly confused. To that could also be added anxious, frustrated or even emotionally at sea, but the Ecstasy is kicking in and taking his thoughts off in a whirlwind, so he can hardly decisively label what he is feeling. He's not good at doing so even at the best of times, so he shouldn't even try right now; all it will lead to is a vicious spiral of perceived failure and self-flagellation.

He wanders aimlessly in the bedroom as he tries to orient himself to the altered scenario, busying himself by tidying up the clothes that Victor had dumped on the floor. Then, he just stands there looking down at the figure on the bed, asleep on his back with a sheet covering only his right leg up to the thigh. He spends a few minutes in quiet contemplation of Victor's amazing body. Never before has he had the chance to have a proper look at him naked. In the soft light cast from the windows of the building opposite the flat, Sherlock's eye traces the sculpted curves of muscle, the sharp valleys that outline his abdomen, the defined rope of Victor's inguinal ligaments, his now soft cock resting against his thigh. His blond hair has started to grow longer; he hasn't had it cut since giving up the captaincy. Sherlock would give anything right now to run his fingers through it, comparing the texture of it to the hair in other places on his body.

With the new dose coming online in his bloodstream, the sight of Victor splayed out across the bed is making him aroused. The scientist in him wants to see the boy's other side, to explore the cleft between the cheeks of that amazingly muscular arse, to examine the sacrum, all those bits of Victor that have been hidden under clothes, or behind towels; all of that could be available now. The thought alone makes Sherlock's own cock ache, and he would give anything to have the boy turn over so that he could indulge himself in looking some more.

Temptation wars with logic: should he wake Victor up? Should he get into bed with him? He's sensible enough to realise that fantasising right now is easy because it's safe; the reality would be quite different if Victor was awake and Sherlock would have all his expectations to manage.

His hands have started to shake. The mistake in taking the second tab in the bathroom would be laughable if it isn't so damned inconvenient. There is no way in his current hyped up state that he will be able to sleep. He's made himself ready to take on whatever Victor had in mind, but not counted on sleep being one of those things.

He's torn. On the one hand, he's curious to know if he could ever learn how to cope with the kind of sex that isn't performed in a pub loo or a dark alley on demand in exchange for money or drugs. The idea that he might actually enjoy the act had never occurred to him until tonight. Victor had not been the only one to appreciate what happened in the foyer; Sherlock had, too, but he'd been in control. He'd done something he'd done many times before; he knew what to expect and didn't have to deal with his own inexperience as the receiving partner. All in all, as turned on as he is and tempted to do something about it, he is mostly relieved that Victor being asleep postpones the moment when his inexperience and inadequacy in this other kind of sex becomes clear to both of them.

 _Not tonight._ There is too much going on, too much to think about. He can't deal with anything more than the dull, familiar ache of arousal he's determined to ignore. When the rising hum of energy from the drug collides with his anxiety, the distress makes him flee the bedroom, closing the door on temptation and his fear of failure.

The flat is warm enough to feel comfortable without any clothes on. As the E cranks up his sensitivity, the thought of fabric against his skin is impossible, anyway. In the light of the table lamp that Victor had switched on, he wanders the living room, looking for something to distract him. A casual glance at the few books on a shelf reveal that Simon is interested in books about the City: ' _Liars Poker'_ , ' _Barbarians at the Gate'_ , and assorted investment strategy books. He pulls down something titled ' _The New New Thing'_ and discovers it's about Silicon Valley. Victor might like that, but it holds no interest to Sherlock, who knows that in his current state he is as likely to be able to concentrate on reading as he is to sprout wings and fly out the window. He drops the book onto the coffee table. _I should mention it to Victor tomorrow._

Unfortunately, that thought opens a trap door into how unlikely it is that they'd have such a mundane interaction tomorrow. Most likely Victor will wake up, realise his mistake, be mortified by what has happened and leave. Or, will he stay, and pretend that none of it had happened? On balance, that is probably the better result, because it means they can keep being friends. The alternative is too horrible to contemplate, because it means Victor will end their relationship out of embarrassment. Victor would still have plausible deniability about what he'd let happen in a drug-addled state of recklessness. _He could chalk it up to just a misguided experiment._

There is still the fact that had Victor said he was _bisexual._ Sherlock lets that thought roll around his head for a while but decides that if Victor wants a male sexual partner, then he will choose someone other than Sherlock, someone who knows how to participate properly and not just perform a scripted act, someone who can keep him satisfied, knows what to do, how to be the other half of a couple. Someone competent, fun to be with, communicative, _normal._ It's too much to ask of anyone to put up with Sherlock's idiosyncrasies.

His brain is stuttering with anxiety and agitation.

Moving along, desperate for a distraction, he looks at Simon's CD collection. Mostly electronic dance, which brings a surge of memory of what it had been like at the club, dancing with Victor. For one precious moment, he suspends disbelief and remembers the pressure of a bass beat so loud that he could feel it on his skin. The heat and the awareness of the crowd around him, scents so overwhelming that his nose simply gave up trying. The dark, penetrated by rays of coloured light in sync with the beat. Any and all of it could have been overwhelming, and yet it wasn't, because Victor was there—a living, breathing lifeline that meant Sherlock could surrender to the music and dance. He remembers those big hands around him, then holding his hips. He _wants_ to believe that it is possible, just possible that the feelings he has for Victor are reciprocated. The thought that they might be, that it was more than the drugs talking, that he might actually _desire_ Sherlock is enough to make him dizzy.

Aware that thinking about all this is not easing the pressure in his groin, Sherlock jams the CD back into its slot and turns away, glaring briefly at his cock which seems to have a mind of its own these days. There's a flush of embarrassment, he bites his lip, determined to stop his wishful thinking.

Since he'd been already hot from the shower when he took the E, it's not surprising that the drug is starting to raise his body temperature to uncomfortable levels. He goes into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water and stands there drinking it in front of the open refrigerator for a while, trying to cool down.

For the next hour, he paces about the flat, nearly climbing the walls until he finally decides to distract himself with a treasure hunt. Simon is a high powered, well paid investment banker. It makes sense to assume that somewhere in the flat the man will have hidden a private stash. Would he be cross if he finds out Sherlock has been snooping? His skill at searching a place without leaving any trace started at an early age. As a boy, he'd used it to spy on his father, who had always been oblivious. Mycroft was harder, especially when he started using tradecraft techniques to try to thwart Sherlock's efforts. Sticky tape, hairs across doorways, dusted surfaces—he's learned to work around them all.

With the bedroom off limits, it takes Sherlock several hours of careful searching before the kitchen canister of sugar turns up trumps. Once he lays out the gear on the coffee table, he realises he has no real intention of taking any, certainly not while he is still under the influence of the E. The hunt had just been something to kill time and occupy his brain. Without a challenge to distract him, he knows that he'll spend the rest of the night ruminating over what had happened, what Victor said, and whether it could possibly mean anything significant.

Coming down from the second tablet is even worse than the first; it rasps his nerves raw and sets off a whole series of cravings. But, he can resist as long as Victor is so close by, asleep in the bedroom. Oddly, the sight of the cocaine also turns out to calm him. Should he just leave now? Try to save himself the pain? He could take the cocaine with him and disappear into a bolt hole, chuck it all in, forget the degree and just disappear. The more time passes, the likelier it seems that that Victor will regret everything when he wakes up, hung-over from what to him was probably just another ' _good night out_ '. It's what the boys in the Burrell's Fields dorm used to brag about.

If he stays, Sherlock will need to help him save face in the morning, to act normal, to not remind him of last night if it's something he wants to forget. Pretending nothing happen has to be the only way to preserve their friendship. If he did vanish with the drugs, that would be the end of their relationship, Sherlock is almost certain. He tries to imagine how painful it would be to lose Victor entirely, and the thought brings tears to his eyes which he swipes away before they run down his cheeks. Frustrated at the way his emotions are running away from him, he is only grateful that there is no one there to see his shame.

Victor has been the best thing that has happened to him at university. Mycroft isn't always right; _maybe_ it might be possible for them to remain friends. He just needs to spare Victor's blushes, never remind him of his mistake in letting it slip that he fancies him. He can't ever remind Victor of anything he'd said to Sherlock, either. That must have been the drugs talking.

With new determination, he goes back into the foyer and picks up his duffle bag, rummaging through it for some clothes. No need to parade around naked anymore; as he comes down from the E, he's starting to feel the cold more.

Once he's dressed, Sherlock pulls the leather recliner over to the window and positions it so he will be able to see the dawn coming up. Pulling out one of the Moby CDs, he puts it into the player, adjusting the headphone volume to an acceptable level. He's going to distract himself by imagining the two of them dancing; from tomorrow, this will be all he has to fuel his fantasies. Lying back in the chair, as the music starts he waits for morning.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Even before he opens his eyes, Victor gives into the languorous and warm moment, enjoying a primal stretch of his body in that odd moment between sleep and wakefulness. Then, a niggle intrudes, a momentary dislocation: this is not a familiar bed. To start with, it's much more comfortable and spacious than his own, not to mention downright sensuous. The sheets he can feel beneath him ( _Why am I naked?_ ) are silky to the touch, not the nubbly roughness of his flat's cotton blend that has been washed hundreds of times. He can feel the warmth of sunlight on his bare skin, and the room itself is surprisingly warm.

 _Definitely not Saxon Street._ The Cambridge flat is now kept cool; once Chloe had left and Sh––

"––Sherlock?!" The half-strangled shout emerges as Victor's eyes fly open, memory flooding in at the same time as he has to blink in the light streaming in the floor-to-ceiling glass windows of Simon Spencer's Canary Wharf flat.

None of that matters, once the absence of Sherlock pierces his awareness. There's not even a dent in the mattress, or a trace of warmth, when Victor runs his hand over the place where the boy should have slept.

 _Oh, God; please don't tell me he's left._

Victor wastes no time in propelling himself out of bed, now wide awake with anxiety. Last night had been so good; had it been too good to be true? He'd been on cloud nine after what Sherlock had done, and he must have dozed off while waiting for him to emerge from the shower.

"Sherlock?" he tries again, this time more hesitantly. No answer comes, which puts added urgency into his frantic attempts to pull his pants on, hopping about as he catches a toe in the cloth. At some point in the night, his pants have been folded up with the rest of his clothes and placed neatly on a chair.

Victor stumbles a bit as he goes down the hall and into the living room; he's not watching where he's going because all he needs to find…

… is the sight that greets him now: Sherlock lying in one of Simon's ridiculously expensive reclining leather chairs, with a pair of headphones on. He must have pulled the chair over to the window so he could look upriver; the whole of the Thames is on show from that angle.

Victor traces the headphones cord back to a Bang & Olufsen music centre, heaving a sigh of relief that there's a reasonable explanation to Sherlock not replying to him; he hadn't heard Victor, since he doesn't appeared to realise even now that they're both awake.

Victor takes advantage of that fact to look, _really_ look at Sherlock without worrying about being seen doing so. The morning light illuminates the boy's pale skin against the dark hair, casting shadows at the angles of his cheekbones. His posture is relaxed, his eyes closed. Even from where he is standing, Victor can see the half-moons of those long lashes and the trace of a smile on those lips. When he is not aware of being observed, Sherlock's usual, carefully curated, almost sharp; expression eases, and he looks younger. All that intellectual arrogance and cold demeanour gives way to something softer and more vulnerable. Last night's clothes have been replaced; he's wearing a pair of jeans and an olive-coloured hooded sweatshirt, over a t-shirt. His grey-and-black trainers have new, bright white laces.

Has Sherlock slept at all and if yes, where? Had he been disappointed to find Victor asleep? What if Sherlock has misinterpreted the whole thing in the way that he often seems to misread the ways other people behave? Victor is horrified at the realisation that his inadvertent selfishness last night could have been misunderstood. The fact that the boy is fully dressed makes Victor now acutely aware of his own state of near-nakedness. His confusion is made worse by the fact that the last thing he remembers is Sherlock heading for the shower. Could it be that he _hadn't_ fallen asleep so soon, after all, and he just doesn't remember? Is this a side effect of the Ecstasy, some sort of a memory lapse? Sherlock had said something about the drug and not remembering. Had they made love after the shower? How could he have forgotten something like that?

He wouldn't. He's certain of it. But, if that's not the case, then guilt follows. Not for the first time, he curses the fact that he'd succumbed to Bryony's suggestion that he take the Ecstasy. After his own confession of his attraction to Sherlock and the boy's gift of the best blow job he'd ever had in his life, could he really have been so callous and unfeeling? He cannot believe his selfish crash into a drug-induced slumber, leaving Sherlock to draw his own conclusions. He _had_ offered to return the favour in kind, but Sherlock had delayed and–– for lack of a better word, _fled_ to the shower.

 _Something's definitely gone wrong here._ Victor can't quite put his finger on what it is _exactly_ , but something's amiss. His mortification stops him cold when he tries to consider what Sherlock might think if he were to turn around right now and see him like this. It's enough to shame Victor into heading back into the bedroom, to get cleaned up, properly dressed and make a more dignified entrance. As he pulls out clean clothes from the backpack that is now leaning up against the closet doors, Victor decides that he has to have a quick shower. It'll give him time to puzzle through the events of the night before, and hopefully signal Sherlock to the fact that he's up.

By the time he has dried off and wrapped a towel around his waist, Victor is calmer. He moves to the basin to brush his teeth and is mid-way through his shave, and actually smiling at all the good memories: him eating one of Sherlock's langoustine pieces with obvious relish and seeing gratitude in those grey-green eyes; arriving at Heaven's VIP lounge and having an excuse to put his arm around Sherlock's shoulders; the dancing ( _who'd have known he's such a brilliant dancer!)_ … He looks away from the mirror to rinse off the last of the shaving foam from his razor, still smiling at the memories of the last moments they'd spent on the dance floor, his hands on those narrow hips. A smirk then spreads on his features with a shake of his head and a chuckle; he can feel the heat in his groin when the memory of those amazing lips around his cock returns full-force. It's plenty enough to bring him into hardness again. He splashes water from the basin onto his now smooth cheeks.

When he looks back up at the mirror, Sherlock is in the reflection, as if conjured out of thin air. Startled, Victor drops his razor into the sink.

"Good morning." Sherlock's tone is composed, almost business-like.

"Good morning." If only two such simple words could possibly convey the emotion Victor is feeling. As he turns to take a closer look, planning to reach out to embrace his now-lover, his welcoming smile fades in dismay as he sees the dark smudges under Sherlock's eyes.

"You didn't sleep?"

Sherlock shakes his head. "Too wound up from all the stimulation. It takes a toll. I stayed in the living room and let you get some rest." Then, almost as an afterthought, "Sorry. I hope I didn't disturb you when I left the bathroom after my shower."

Victor stretches out a hand and tentatively strokes Sherlock's cheek. " _Disturb me?_ No, you should have woken me up, and come to bed. I am so sorry, Sherlock. I didn't mean to leave you alone like that––that was horrid of me."

Sherlock doesn't move away, but his reaction to the gentle touch is hesitant; he doesn't lean into it, and his eyes have narrowed as he frowns; Victor can see him trying to think hard about something.

"Why?" Sherlock finally asks.

"Because I love you and like I said, I didn't want to end the evening. I wanted to share the bed with you, hold you, sleep with you, all that––and well, yeah, obviously satisfy you the way you did me."

Victor feels a thrill at being able to say such things, out loud, to stroke a cheek that before last night he's only been able to admire from afar.

Sherlock hesitates for a moment, but then steps away from the caress, shrugging nonchalantly. "It made sense. You were tired; I wasn't. I wouldn't have been able to sleep. I've never shared a bed with anyone in my life, so it wasn't an inconvenience." He starts to leave the bathroom.

There are so many things wrong in Sherlock's reply that pull at Victor's heart. Rather than try to refute with words the obvious distancing that is going on, he instinctively reaches out to curl his fingers around Sherlock's shoulders, using his size and weight to steer the boy back into facing him again.

"No. Not going to let this happen. Whatever other people have done or _not_ done when it comes to you and sex, that's not what's going on here. _I love you._ Whatever you've talked yourself into overnight, it doesn't match this reality." He smiles at the naked surprise bleeding into Sherlock's eyes despite his obvious efforts to keep his cool.

Smiling more broadly, Victor leans in, and very gently kisses the same spot on his cheek that he'd caressed. There is a softening in the shoulders that he is holding, which leads him to gather Sherlock into his arms and bury his head into the boy's dark curls. "You heard me right. _I love you_. I want to spend all the time in the world showing you what that means. Forget about last night and come back to bed with me now."

There is a murmur, half in protest. "I'm already dressed."

Victor smiles, as the hug he is giving is finally being tentatively reciprocated; Sherlock has moved his hands to rest on the towel around his hips.

Victor's hands reach in under the hoodie and t-shirt and strokes the nub of a nipple hardening with desire. "Trust me; I think I know how to fix that."

o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Sherlock is stunned by Victor's reaction. He'd been so sure that he would wake up full of regret and try to pretend that the whole exercise in the hall had just been a case of drug-induced lust being satisfied in the most convenient manner possible. Maybe that's what friends do for one another. He wouldn't know, not ever having had a friend before now.

How is it possible that Victor could be saying that word again? _Love_? How is that even possible?

As Victor lifts his hands to pull his hoodie off, Sherlock can't resist tugging open the towel around those muscular hips, letting it fall to the bathroom floor. Victor doesn't seem to mind, shifting a bit closer and wrapping his arms around Sherlock again.

As Sherlock slides his hand down to take a hold of the cock he'd felt pressing into his stomach, Victor protests with a smile: "No, not my turn."

Sherlock's eyes snap up to meet his. "You liked it yesterday," he argues feebly. Victor is aroused, and by all accounts he had enjoyed what had happened the night before, so why wouldn't he want more? "I don't mind," he adds. "We don't need to take turns."

Victor frowns, studies his expression. "No, we really don't. That's not how it works. I just meant that we should do something _you'd_ like, something that would be for both of us. _Together_ ," he adds pointedly.

"I don't know what that means." Sherlock does understand, on a _theoretical_ level, how this is supposed to be an enjoyable experience for two parties at the same time, but the things he likes doing with Victor—physical things—don't quite connect to the desire for sexual release, which he's suffering from right now, and it's highly distracting. He'd very much like Victor to help him remedy that, but he's painfully aware that it isn't all that Victor expects or wants right now.

He doesn't have a roadmap for this, no script, no plan, no reference, and he knows he's going to screw up anticipating what happens next, what the sequence of events will be, what he's being expected to do but can't because he can't read other people so he always fails, and isn't this—sex—supposed to be some sort of a pinnacle of human connection, and thus requiring of the most sophisticated level of emotional communication which he's utterly incapable of even––

"Sherlock?"

Victor's voice cuts through the haze of his ricocheting deductions.

Victor retreats a little, leans against the sink. "We don't have to do anything…specific. I just want to _be_ with you. Just––" the rest of the explanation is lost as Victor cups his chin and leans in to kiss him.

Sherlock decides he quite enjoys kissing Victor. He'd never kissed any of the people to whom he's done favours. He wouldn't let them. There was something in the act that seemed to threaten his independence, something about it was too personal.

Too… _intimate_.

He indulges in what he would have liked to do last night: slides his fingers into Victor's hair. He doesn't know what he wants, what he likes, but if this is a step on the way to finding out, it's acceptable. More than acceptable.

He's almost painfully aroused. The realisation is not surprising per se, but suddenly the sensation isn't laced with the exasperated resignation with which he deals with the problem on his own. Instead of wanting it to be over quickly, he wants it to somehow get even more intense.

 _Unprecedented_.

He had anticipated that if Victor was to perform something on him, he'd be overwhelmed quickly by the sensation of being touched like that; it would all be over very quickly. But, what if there was no plan for a specific act, for a specific conclusion? Isn't that what Victor is suggesting; that they simply go to bed together with no pressure to aim for something particular?

Relief cavorts with disbelief and arousal.

Can he cope with an unscripted, spontaneous situation that might or might not end in sex? He does know that he wants to be held, that he wants that body to be pressed up against him. Victor's presence right here, right now is grounding in a way that has not lost its novelty; whether that has to do with sex remains to be seen, but the conclusion of Sherlock's self-analysis is clear: he does want to be in bed with Victor, with as little clothing between them as possible.

Mind made up, he wraps his arms around Victor's neck. "Want to be with you," Sherlock mutters, closing his eyes as he pressed his cheek against Victor's chest, inhaling the familiar and reassuring scent of him, mixed with shaving cream and Simon's shower gel. He doesn't know what else to say, how else to phrase his need.

Victor reacts by sliding his hands down to Sherlock's hips, then lower so he can grab his buttocks to press their groins together.

A sudden vertigo brought on by surprise hits as Victor lifts him by his buttocks as he turns; Sherlock finds himself sitting on the sink, arms still wrapped around the blond.

"God––" Victor groans, "You had me worried there for a moment."

He lavishes kisses down the side of Sherlock's neck, and the sensory assault is almost too much, making him squirm. "Bed," he manages to suggest between trying to inhale; it's almost like trying to breathe while being tickled.

"Yes." Victor takes a step back, extends his hand and pulls Sherlock down onto his feet.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Hunger of a different sort eventually drives them out of the bedroom. Victor finds the makings of a breakfast in the fridge and cooks while Sherlock brushes his teeth and shaves.

As they begin to eat, conversation comes easily. Victor knows he must be beaming like an idiot but he's not alone: Sherlock is wearing a smile that matches his in relief and radiance

Victor can't help but marvel at the privilege of seeing Sherlock like this, the way the boy makes sure never to be witnessed by anyone else. Instead of being the bundle of tension, of fretting over everything he says and does the way he does when other people are around, the mask has dropped. He's relaxed, happy, does not try to conceal his habit of following Victor with his appreciative gaze and most of all, does not hesitate to touch a shoulder from behind before grabbing a plate from a cupboard.

What Victor _is_ interested in, is replaying the last two hours in his head over and over again because he can't stop marvelling about what he's just experienced. The best part: seeing Sherlock's initial apprehension melt away as he was allowed to explore whatever he wanted. Victor had enjoyed giving him the time and patience he could sense Sherlock needed to wrap his head around what was going on. Seeing it slowly sink in and banish his anxiety that Victor wanted not just something for himself, but to be with him, in whatever way Sherlock wanted and chose. Just like yesterday, Victor had been blown away by the sense of admiration and adoration and complete, intense focus directed at him. Sherlock asked if Victor wanted to take things further, to go for anal, but in the end what they'd done had been simpler. It was all so new for Victor. He lay on his back with Sherlock straddling him. Victor's big hands had brought both of their cocks together. Slick with lubricant they both found enough friction thrusting into this grip to get them off quite quickly. It seemed that Victor wasn't the only one primed by last night's encounter for a trigger-happy arousal. Afterwards, Sherlock had seemed quite confused about what he should do next, rapidly getting off Victor, but he hadn't fled the scene like last night. Victor pulled him gently into an embrace, lying side by side as he dragged the duvet on top of them. With Sherlock, every moment seemed meaningful, carefully memorised, important, fragile in a way that made even Victor's best bedroom encounters with Chloe pale in comparison. Eventually Sherlock had fallen asleep, his head on Victor's arm, his body curled into Victor's.

 _God, I nearly missed out on this._

Victor puts his fork down, watching Sherlock without a care in the world eating his bacon and eggs and leafing through the Financial Times that had been delivered to the door . Not once during the time they had all lived at Saxon Street had he behaved as relaxed as this. It was always the carefully curated, distant front. It's only now that Victor realises how many layers of armour needed to be shed to get to this moment. Perhaps some of them had been his own.

 _I love him._

"What do you want to do between now and the concert?" Sherlock's glance has a tinge of mischief as he pushes his now empty plate to the middle of the table. "More of the same?"

Sherlock sounds like he would be very amenable, and Victor's chuckle escapes from a mouthful of bacon. "Later. There will be plenty of time for that. And, when we get back to Cambridge, too. So, I'd like to take advantage of being in London to take a look around."

"What, like…sightseeing _?_ " Sherlock's eyebrows signal his scepticism.

Victor nods, a little sheepishly. "Well, my dad brought me into town when I was a kid, and there were school trips, but I've never really just wandered about."

"Then let's take a walk. We could go from here to Wigmore Street, take our time. Or, miss out some boring bits by taking the toy train or the river bus from Canary Wharf to Tower Bridge."

"Toy train? What's that?"

"DLR, Docklands Light Railway. It's an elevated driverless system, part of London Transport. It will be empty on a Saturday, whereas the river bus will be busy with tourists."

"Let's do that; you'd rather avoid crowds, wouldn't you? I've brought a new camera: an Olympus compact, my birthday present to myself. I promise to try not to act too much like a tourist, though."

o0o0o0o0o0o0o

The toy train lives up to the name; the four carriages look like something from a Disneyland monorail. Victor takes a lot of pictures of Canary Wharf and the docklands areas that can be seen from the little train, enjoying the opportunity to play with his new camera. When the only other two people in the car leave at Limehouse, Victor decides that he would rather like to kiss Sherlock, so he leans down and says, "We're alone, you know…"

Sherlock smirks, pointing up at a black half dome at the back of the aisle. "No, we're not. CCTV is everywhere."

"So? It's not like we'd be doing something that they've never seen before." He says it with a bit of bravado, exhilarated that he can actually say it and do a public display of affection to a boy. Never in his wildest dreams had he ever thought he'd be brave enough.

For a split second, he can hardly breathe for the extraordinary fact: he is in love with Sherlock, and Sherlock is willing and able to respond in kind.

That simple revelation makes his emotions well up. Biting the inside of his cheek, he realises Sherlock is talking and he'd missed the beginning.

"… and the DLR is fitted with state-of-the-art surveillance ever since the docklands bombing five years ago. My brother has access to the footage."

Victor raises a startled eye towards the ceiling camera. "You're pulling my leg…" When Sherlock gives him a rather pained shake of the head, Victor puffs his cheeks out. "The proverbial big brother. Why is he so obsessed?"

Sherlock shrugs. "In his job, close family relatives can be targeted by people who are trying to interfere with his work; at least that's what he says is the issue. Apparently, that entitles me to what he calls 'close protection'. Not that I want it, or need it. I think he just uses it as an excuse to micro-manage me."

"Protection?" This news makes Victor re-assess some of the conclusions he'd made about Sherlock's brother. Mycroft's suspicions about him—at the hospital and then over the phone at Christmas—might not be quite as unfair, if he thought Victor was a real threat. "Like, what, a body guard?"

A snort of derision is his answer. "More like a minder. He uses both his actual minions and the occasional high-end private eye. It pisses me off completely, but what I want never gets factored into his thinking. He already thinks we're––– _involved_."

"Yeah, I gathered from what he said to me at Christmas. I don't care if he sees us. I am not ashamed of you and me being together." He puts an arm around Sherlock, just enjoying the freedom to do so. "Can the camera pick up what we are saying?"

"No; visual only."

Victor says very loudly, "Piss off; he's under _my_ close protection."

Sherlock smirks. "They do, however, have people who can lip read."

"Maybe we should take down our trousers and moon at them?"

"Nope." The p is popped, for emphasis. Then, a little warily, Sherlock adds, "Don't want to share that fabulous arse of yours with anyone."

Victor laughs out loud, delighted and once again surprised that Sherlock has become relaxed and confident enough to say something like that. "The feeling is mutual, I assure you."

Looking up at the camera again, Sherlock silently mouths, "Piss off!" before he turns back to Victor and says, "Let's change the subject to something more interesting." He then stands up; apparently, their stop is approaching.

Once they disembark, Sherlock takes them away from the crowds at Tower Hill and back to the Thames. They walk along Paul's Way until it disappears around a corner and dumps them into a street.

"Can't we keep walking along the river?" Victor is enjoying the views.

"Not on the northern bank, at least not before Temple. All this used to be wharves and warehouses, and then got sold to property developers."

Their path ducks and dives away from and then back to the Thames. Sherlock never hesitates; he seems to know exactly where he is going—taking them down side alleys, behind buildings, in through gates that from a distance would appear to have been locked, but aren't when he simply pulls them open.

After a trip through an underground car park, Victor starts laughing. "Um, Sherlock, this is hardly the scenic route. How the hell do you know where we're going?"

Sherlock had been several paces in front, so he turns and retraces his steps so he can look at Victor. "I lived on the streets; I learned how to get anywhere without cameras spotting me," He admits, then worries his lip, appearing to study Victor's expression.

Expecting him to judge? To be shocked or disappointed? Victor realises Sherlock may not know what his brother or the private detective Victor had spoken to at Addenbrook hospital had told him about Sherlock's past... misadventures.

He nods, hoping to look non-judgmental.

"And I am doing my best right now to drive the tag team following us mad," Sherlock announces proudly after a moment of silence.

Victor shifts on his feet to look behind them; no sign of anyone following. "Tag team? What do you mean?"

"There are three people following us."

"Now you really _are_ pulling my leg."

"Nope." That p gets popped again.

Victor puts his hands on his hips. "Prove it."

Sherlock shrugs. "Okay." He stops and puts his hands together under his chin in what Victor has learned is his thinking pose. A moment later, a wicked grin appears. "Got it. You'll have to be prepared for some running and climbing. Up for a bit of excitement?"

"Sure."

The next twelve minutes pass in a blur. Sherlock takes them back onto the riverside pavement right beside the road, and then leaps over a metal railing to cross four lanes of traffic into the back end of Blackfriars train station. Using the underpasses, they pop up on the northeast side of a huge intersection at the bridge, before diving down a narrow road that is signed Watergate. Their route then takes a sharp right bend, and soon the road becomes something called Kingscote Street, but it is more like a tunnel underneath office buildings. Next, Sherlock makes a quick dash across moving traffic again, this time on Tudor Street, and Victor ends up with cars hooting at him from all directions before he can sprint to catch up with Sherlock disappearing up a driveway alongside a hotel. He's nearly caught up as Sherlock takes them right through reception and out the other side, then across the narrow street into the St Brides Pub and out the back door. There, amongst the beer barrels and rubbish bins, he calmly opens a gate onto a narrow alleyway that turns and twists between buildings before turning them out into a brick paved passage way. He takes a running leap up onto a bollard and then reaches up to grab a hold of the iron railing above the brick wall, using his forward momentum to haul himself up and over in a fluid move. Victor has to take it more slowly, using his strength to lift himself over the fence.

He stops to catch his breath. To his surprise, they are in a churchyard. Tall trees and grass are not what he expected to find in the City of London.

Beside him, Sherlock pants out: "St Brides… Christopher Wren... Great place for music recitals." Having soon caught his breath, he's off again and Victor follows, heading right through the church, across the churchyard, and through a door of another pub.

Walking at a more normal pace, Sherlock leads Victor down a black–and-white-tiled hall, and then through a set of wooden double doors, into a public bar.

"Now, we wait."

Victor looks around. "Where are we?"

"Ye Old Bell; Fleet Street. Built in the 1670s for the workers rebuilding St Brides which was destroyed in the Great Fire. Not on the tourist trail, lucky for us. Caxton's apprentice had a printing press here. Usually full of hacks and media types on a weekday; empty on a Saturday." He's still catching his breath.

The barman is looking at them, perhaps because they are the only people in the room. Victor is suddenly thirsty. "Fancy a pint?"

"No. Water will do for me. We do have time if you want one; our followers will have had to contact the CCTV room to work out where we are. There are only three places where we would have appeared on camera, and one of those is a privately owned system."

Victor goes to the bar and orders a half pint of lager and lime for himself and a still water with ice and lemon for Sherlock. While he waits for the drinks, he thinks about how extraordinary a life Sherlock must have led to have acquired this sort of knowledge. It is bizarre and he's still sceptical that there is anyone really chasing them. Yet he has to admit that he's having fun, too.

After collecting the drinks and heading for the table Sherlock has picked, he sees through to another room, presumably this one is fronting onto Fleet Street. The tiny squares of stained glass cast an interesting light.

After their drinks are consumed in a companionable silence, Victor leans forward to make sure the barman can't hear. "How much longer? How will you know when they've caught up?"

Sherlock consults his watch. "I give them another ten minutes or so."

"Good, because I want to take your photo, in the other room. There is something about the light in there."

A frown takes shape. "I hate having my photo taken."

"Why?"

"Because…" Sherlock shrugs. "Just do."

"Just for me?" Victor pleads. "You will like the outcome. And I'll let you take one of me, if you like."

"I don't need a camera." Sherlock taps the side of his temple. "Photographic memory."

"Showoff." Victor feels able to tease now. Their session in bed this morning seems to have broken the ice after last night's confessions, and they are able to draw on the easy ways of their earlier friendship to help them both relax about their mutual attraction. Victor's initial shock of not just coming out of the closet to Sherlock, having it reciprocated and then consummated still leaves him reeling a bit, so he can understand that for Sherlock, too, this is a surprise.

An exhilarating, exciting, wonderful surprise.

Sex with Chloe had been…just sex, and about as devoid of feeling as the rest of their relationship had been. He can only see it now, in hindsight, after experiencing all that of which what he has deprived himself. With Sherlock, he's realising that the physical side is more an expression of the depth of connection made in their friendship. _It just feels RIGHT._

"Come on." Victor gets up and heads for the saloon bar.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Sherlock never gets to play photographer, because just as Victor finishes with the portrait he wants, the door onto Fleet Street opens and a man in his late twenties strides into the pub and heads for the bar. As he passes the open door to the saloon bar, the leather jacketed man glances in. Sherlock gives a big grin, waves and cheerily salutes the man with a "Hi!"

Victor sees the flash of embarrassment and annoyance take hold for a split second before the man's expression changes to one of confusion. But, even Victor can see that it's an act.

Sherlock is laughing. " _So_ busted…" He turns to Victor and says, "We can go now. One down, two to go. I'll bet you we can get them all before we get to the end of the evening."

o0o0o0o0o0o0o

Christian Tetzlaff's performance in the first half of the Wigmore Hall concert is mesmerising, in more ways than one. Sherlock has always admired his bowing technique, and the fact that the German violinist tries to follow the musical text closely, spurning the virtuosic gamesmanship that a lot of soloists use. He loves that Tetzlaff tries to disappear behind the work, using his violin to find and voice the expressive character of the score. He's a conduit rather than trying to steal the limelight from the genius behind the music.

What makes the whole experience doubly exciting—even unique—is that Victor's leg has been pressed up against Sherlock's, and a big, warm hand has been resting on Sherlock's thigh throughout the whole performance. It grounds him in an unexpected way, just pushing aside all the usual distractions of a packed concert hall. By focusing his sense of smell on Victor's familiar scent, by using the pressure on his thigh to block out the scratchy sensation of the worn velour fabric on the seat, Sherlock can focus on the music, what he can see and hear. It's so _odd_ and yet exhilarating, how the physical presence of Victor has changed the game for him. It's like they are now attuned to one another.

Once he'd stopped obsessing about sex, how to do it, whether Victor would like this or that if he could perform himself up to expectation—all those anxieties about being unscripted and spontaneous just disappeared. In bed this morning, Victor's presence had somehow overridden Sherlock's never-ending internal dialogue of dismay and anxiety.

As the applause for the end of the first half echoes through the concert hall, Sherlock can't help smiling, additional delight stemming from the fact he's just identified another one of Mycroft's minions. The man's surreptitious glances from where he is seated three rows behind and slightly to the right of them are blindingly obvious tells.

"Time to out another one," he whispers to Victor. "Don't look now, but the thirty-ish man, short dark hair, in the navy blue sports jacket without a tie, sitting three rows behind us in seat J9 is one of the tag team. I'm going to go to the loo and I want you to watch how he gets up to follow me. Once his attention is on me, follow him without being seen, if you can."

Then he's up, clambering over Victor's legs and out into the aisle, walking quickly up the left side of the front stalls, heading towards the back of the hall. Clattering down the stairs towards the gents, Sherlock wants to get in before the tail can get out of the hall. The fact that he's had to wait for others to vacate their seats before he can give chase gives Sherlock a precious minute or two of a head start.

The gent's starts to fill up pretty quickly; It's an art deco-era urinal with one long, tiled wall to maximise space. Sherlock enters a stall where he locks the door to show it's occupied, but he's still able to peer through the gap between the door and the stall wall.

When Mister Navy Sportsjacket arrives, Sherlock smirks. Instead of taking the first available position, the man walks further down, eying the backs of the men who have moved to the washbasins and then turning to look at the closed stall doors.

Despite all the noise and intrusive scent of human excretions, Sherlock can spot when Victor arrives; there is something about a big man that changes the sound of footsteps. Sherlock waits behind the door until the agent walks by, back towards the entrance. Once he's likely to be facing Victor, Sherlock opens the door and springs out directly behind him, saying _hello_ quietly enough not to attract the attention of anyone else.

Without thinking, the man freezes when he seems to recognise the baritone; he turns to see Sherlock waving at him and laughing to rub in the fact that he's been spotted. Chagrined, the man flees the loo, giving a pointed glare at Victor as he passes.

Victor says politely, "Do give my regards to his lordship."

"Two down, one to go," Sherlock crows, as he comes up to Victor.

When they return to their seats, they keep an eye on J9, but the man does not return. It adds to the pleasure of the second half, which is capped off by a marvellous rendition of Jean-Marie Leclaire's sonata for two violins, Opus Three, Number Five in E Minor*, for which Tetzlaff is joined by his Quartet partner, Elizabeth Kufferath.

After the performance is over, Sherlock and Victor linger behind until the worst of the crowd has left, hands joined and Victor's thumb idly stroking over Sherlock's knuckles underneath their bunched-up jackets placed between their seats.

The two of them leave Wigmore Street with a shared smile.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o

"I'm starving. Where do you think we should go to eat?"

"I know a place in China Town," Sherlock announces cryptically. Without waiting for a reply, he starts leading the way.

Their path turns out to be scarcely less circuitous than when they'd run from the first of their followers. Under the cover of darkness now, the pair of them pass down seemingly blind alleys, through delivery areas off the main roads, once even up a fire escape and over a roof. At least this time Sherlock doesn't break into a run. "There's only one of them left to be identified; I just want to tire them out."

From the outside, the Samsui restaurant on Gerrard Street has nothing to recommend it as a better venue than any of the other places they've passed on their way through China Town. Far from it; there is no menu outside, no attempt to lure in the tourists who want to experience a bit of China without the airfare. The window is streamed up, but even from the street, Victor can see the lighting is harsh. Not what he would have picked for what is essentially a date. Sherlock, however, does not hesitate. A little bell over the door announces their arrival, but not one of the very obviously Chinese diners bothers to look up as they enter. The floor is linoleum, the tables and chairs metal and plastic, the conversation decidedly not in English.

The one person who does look up at their entrance is a middle-aged woman sitting in an armchair next to the bench under the front window that Victor assumes is reserved for take-away customers. Her black hair is showing signs of grey and is pulled back into a severe bun in the back. As she sees Sherlock, her face erupts into a broad smile, followed by a burst of what Victor can only assume is Chinese.

Without missing a step, Sherlock replies in what Victor assumes is the same language as he heads through the small restaurant towards the only free table in the room, a small one against the back wall, set for two.

She scurries behind them, and then really looks at Victor. Given her diminutive stature, he realises that he must look like a giant. As her eyes move from his feet to his head, there is something in her look that makes him blush.

A torrent of Chinese aimed at Sherlock follows. It is a little querulous and sounds like she is almost berating him.

Sherlock responds in a calm manner, still in Chinese, as he sits down and points Victor towards the chair beside him. The woman disappears through a swing door at the back into what Victor can only assume is the kitchen.

"You can speak Chinese?"

Sherlock keeps sweeping the room with his gaze, carefully examining each of the other patrons. "Cantonese and Mandarin. That was the former."

Victor shakes his head in amazement. "Why?"

That question makes Sherlock look back at him in surprise. "Because she speaks Cantonese."

Victor smiles. "I meant why have you learned Chinese?"

"Because there are more Chinese than English."

Before Victor can work out how to respond to the almost casual assumption that learning a language would be based on the number of native speakers in the world, the tiny woman reappears.

This time, she addresses Victor in rather broken English. "You Juanfu's special friend?"

He hasn't a clue what she means, and starts to wonder why they haven't been given a menu.

"He's with me, yes," Sherlock answers for him. "Victor, meet Madam Huilang. This is her business."

Victor manages a self-conscious smile. "Hello."

"You big man. Big appetite, too?"

He nods.

She gives Victor a stern look. Hands on her hips, she snaps, "Then you do me favour. Tell Juanfu, your special friend, he must come more often. Debts need paying. He make me lose face, not coming." Then she disappears before he can reply.

"Who's John Fu?"

"I am. It's what Cheong Huilang calls me. It means Curly Fortune. She likes my hair."

Victor is slightly scandalised. "Sherlock, do you owe her money?"

"No. other way around. I did her a favour a couple of years ago, and she insists on paying me back with free meals. But, since it's rather a long way from Cambridge, it's been a while."

The swing door opens and a small man carrying a huge tray comes through. Balancing it on one hand, he snaps open a stand beside their table and proceeds to unload a great number of dishes laden with food, all of which Victor can't even recognise, and two tall towers of bamboo baskets. Madam Huilang appears behind him with a box that she opens to reveal a set of silver chopsticks, presenting them to Sherlock. While eyeing Victor a bit suspiciously, she says something.

With a laugh and a nod, he explains, "She wants to know if the gweilo—that's you, by the way—knows how to use chopsticks or whether she has to go find a fork and spoon."

"What's a–– what was that, a _gweilo_?"

"Literally translated, a 'ghost man'. It's a Cantonese slang word for Caucasians. Some people translate it as 'foreign devil.'"

"Did you order all this?" Victor can certainly eat, but this is a _lot_ of food.

"Nope. No one here orders from a menu. They eat what they are served, and she serves you what she thinks you deserve; her choice. Cheong Huilang's husband was a big figure in the community; when he died she took over the business. These people are employees of the Samsui company; that means 'three rivers' and refers to the Pearl River delta area of Canton."

Victor attacks the first dim sum basket with gusto. He's not bad with chopsticks. Sherlock seems to prefer Chinese to other take-aways, when Victor can't be bothered to cook them an evening meal. Three bites in, he knows that comparing what they eat in Cambridge with this delicacy is ridiculous. If Michelin had been Chinese and awarded for food alone rather than the surroundings or service, this place would be a three-star.

He's polished off the fourth plate before he asks, "What exactly did you do for her?"

Sherlock seems to hesitate. "It would be best if I didn't say. Sort of rude to mention it in the present company."

Victor laughs. "Sherlock Holmes, you never cease to amaze me." Then, he starts to worry; there is something slightly shady about the clientele in the diner. "Is it to do with drugs?" he whispers.

Sherlock looks across the table, a slice of lotus root dangling in his chopsticks. He seems to carefully consider the question, then pops the delicacy in his mouth, chewing it slowly. When he's swallowed, a wary expression takes hold. "Would it matter? It was nearly three years ago."

Victor sighs. The bag of cocaine that had been sitting on the coffee table in Simon's flat comes to mind again. Sherlock had assured him that he'd not taken any; it was just a game to find it.

Sherlock pours him another cup of jasmine tea before replenishing his own. Waiting for it to cool, his eyes are back on the other diners, all of whom seem intent only on their own meals. "It's not what you think. No dealing, no courier work, nothing so mundane. Nor did I work for her as a chemist. I was asked to look at someone else's books**, their accounts, to identify whether people were cheating that person. As a result of seeing those accounts, I was later able to tell Madam Huilang that two of her staff had been skimming profits on the side. It was a substantial amount."

After taking a cautious sip of the tea, Sherlock continues. "It's why my presence here worries some of the Samsui employees. I have something of a reputation for finding out their secrets and exposing them to her."

"Thanks for telling me; not as bad as I thought." Victor licks the end of his chopsticks, where some gorgeously sticky barbecue sauce lingers after he'd devoured the small plate of char siu pork. "After we finish here, how would you like to go back to Heaven? I'd like the opportunity to show you just how much better it can be for both of us without drugs."

Sherlock's smile blossoms. "Yes, I'd like that very much. I could become addicted to dancing with you, instead."

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** Jean-Marie Leclaire's Sonata for Two Violines Op.3 Number 5 in E Minor. Go find it on YouTube- it's bliss. *the story of this is told in Periodic Tales, Holmium, where Sherlock is trapped into reviewing John Smith's accounts, as part of a plot by Fitzroy Ford.


	29. Chapter 29

Chapter Twenty Nine Confrontation

The officer at passport control raises an eyebrow and starts leafing through the pages slowly. Mycroft resists the temptation to roll his eyes. One difficulty of coming back via a normal scheduled flight to Heathrow is that it can cause this sort of scepticism.

"Busy trip, by the looks of it."

Yes, there are some twenty stamps and various paper visas inserted onto the pages of the passport of one Michael Charles Standish, but then Mycroft has used the fake passport for multiple entries into no fewer than nine of the former Soviet Socialist republics while he's been away.

He hasn't stood on British soil for almost eight weeks, but it has been worth every single minute. The reason is that in a safe place in London, Ioseliani's daughter Ketavan has taken possession of a package mailed to her from her father in Tbilisi.

Inside it is the file that will see Fitzroy Ford put away for good. The sword that's been hanging over his head for the past three years* is about to be forged into a set of handcuffs from which his half-brother Ford will never escape. The trail of most damning evidence has been thoroughly uncovered and a few additional seeds of damnation have been planted along the way—just to make absolutely sure of the enemy's extradition to Georgia. When Mycroft takes possession of the file on Monday he will deliver it to Lady Elizabeth Smallwood, chair of the Parliamentary Oversight Committee, with copies passed on to the heads of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ.

Ranks will close, and the traitor will be dealt with—privately, quietly and with the minimum of publicity.

Before that weight is removed from his shoulder there is another pressing matter Mycroft must deal with, one he has been forced to postpone for far too long. It is unfortunate that Sherlock has taken the opportunity of his absence to further complicate his life at university; as perhaps he should have expected, the boy has not heeded a single piece of advice Mycroft had tried to impart regarding the matter of Victor Trevor.

Mycroft needs one more briefing to be on top of the events; periodic reports have reached him, but they have been necessarily short on detail—the last thing he wanted to do was to attract Ford's attention by using official channels. Using S&IL staff is always dangerous, given that Ford is the director. Mycroft could rely on only those he could trust to understand the need for total discretion, and one of the three such people should be waiting for him in the back seat of the car that meets him at Terminal Four. At five thirty and the height of evening rush hour on a Friday night, the journey to his townhouse at South Eaton Place will take longer than normal. The car and driver are Mycroft's own, so for the first time since mid-January, he will be able to talk openly without fear of the discussion reaching Ford.

Mycroft's last message to the operative in charge of monitoring Sherlock, sent just before boarding his flight home from Baku, was simple: "Prepare a full briefing. Spare no one's blushes. I want all the details, no matter how trivial they might seem."

As he slides into the leather cocoon of the Daimler's back seat, he spares a moment to look at the young man with whom he has been communicating in code for the past two months. Charles Baker is older than he looks. Trained by special ops military intelligence, the agent still has a fresh face that can blend into a crowd of Cambridge University students. So far, Sherlock has not been able to identify him as one of his brother's trusted men. Perhaps it helps that this man had been a graduate of Kings College just five years ago.

"Good evening, sir."

"Evening, Baker. Whether it is good or not depends on what you have brought me in that file."

"That is for you to judge, sir. I can only report the facts."

The man's objectivity is one of his defining characteristics, and Mycroft has relied on it before.

"Give me the verbal summary first."

"Very well, sir. At my last telephone report, you asked about two conditions and whether the target had broken those as well as the others you set. I can confirm that, subsequent to our conversation, he has broken both. He had a brief, but not as yet repeated brush with drugs. The other condition he is breaking regularly, on a daily––or perhaps I should say _nightly_ basis."

Mycroft controls the sigh of frustration that threatens to disrupt his aura of professional calm. It is important to preserve the image of imperturbability with one's junior colleagues. However, if Mycroft was the sort to display his inner emotions, this would be one occasion when the fabric of his resolve would be torn asunder. First: a drug relapse, the brevity of which remains to be assessed, and second: Sherlock and Victor's relationship is now a sexual one.

"How was this confirmed? I want the details now."

As the car moves onto the slip road up to the M4 eastbound, Charles Baker resumes his explanation: "As you suggested, sir, I was the only Cambridge-based operative to accompany them on the train down to London for the weekend. I picked up the two London-based agents at Liverpool Street; neither of the two was aware of the identity of the individuals being watched."

"The pair had dinner at the Coq d'Argent, as the guests of a couple we later identified as VT's relative, one Simon Spencer, an investment banker and his girlfriend. After dinner, they went as a foursome to a dance club in central London that is widely known as a gay venue. Soon, the principal target's behaviour appeared to become far more uninhibited than usual. They were observed on site by Agent Alpha, who attempted to dance with SH so he could get a good look at his pupils and judge his general condition. This interruption provoked a nearly violently protective reaction from VT, but the agent did briefly get close enough to confirm signs consistent with stimulant ingestion."

"The four left the club in Simon Spencer's car, driven by VT at a time when his inebriation and drug status was unconfirmed. Their destination was West Quay Podium in Canary Wharf, where Spencer gave the targets the keys to his flat before departing for France with his girlfriend. It took us some time to identify the flat's precise location in apartment block and get surveillance set up in a building across the street, but within the hour we had visual on what was happening. It was a restricted view, but the best we could do on such short notice."

"That first night, while VT slept in the bedroom, SH was awake for most of the night. He seemed active, restless even, moving around constantly in the rest of the flat. Somewhat surprisingly, he was in a state of total undress."

Mycroft rolls his eyes. "My brother has that bad habit at times; clothing becomes over-stimulating if his sensory processing is causing him difficulty. Especially when he's under the influence of drugs, this can happen." There is something distressing, almost embarrassing, about having to explain this eccentricity to one of his subordinates.

"Indeed, sir. From our vantage point, we observed him spend a considerable amount of time looking for something that was hidden in the flat. The line of sight wasn't ideal, and I wasn't able to see anything happening below waist height. It was only the following afternoon, once the two had left for the concert at Wigmore Hall, that I was able to gain entry to the flat. That's when I found this, on the coffee table, in plain sight." He hands over a photo from the file.

In the gathering twilight, the headlights of the cars leaving London are distracting, so Mycroft turns on the side light above the door. He can now see the image clearly; the photo shows a close-up of a packet of white powder and a typical traveling businessman's overseas medical first aid pack, with two syringes lying on the top of it. It is but a cold comfort that both are still in their sealed sterile plastic cellophane wrappers.

Mycroft closes his eyes in despair: this is probably cocaine, intended for intravenous use by the looks of it; more likely than heroin.

"It's not what you think, sir," Baker pipes up.

Mycroft opens his eyes and hones his gaze on the agent. "Explain."

"While the two were at the concert, I placed microphones in the living room, bathroom and bedroom. After the concert ended, they went to China Town for a meal and then returned to the night club. This time, Agent Delta got close enough to them on the dance floor to observe their behaviour. Nothing— at least nothing overtly noticeable—indicated to either of them being under the influence, and they did not even purchase any drinks other than water. Delta engaged them in conversation and offered them an Ecstasy tablet each to gauge their reaction; both declined. There is, of course, the possibility that this refusal was simply because they'd already taken one or they had other narcotics in their possession. Delta also attempted to flirt with VT, resulting in her being ignored completely by both targets. VT was entirely focused on SH, and the pair was exhibiting a level of familiarity that had not been present the night before, which may suggest intimacy had taken place."

Mycroft taps the photo impatiently. "What happened, or didn't happen at the club, has no bearing on what may have transpired at the flat before or after regarding drugs. What of the cocaine left in plain sight on the table?"

"When the pair returned to Spencer's apartment in West Quay, I was able to record their conversation. I think you will find it interesting reading, sir."

Baker pulls out of the file a stapled transcript. "I took the liberty of adding in descriptions of what I could see through the binoculars from across the street. By then, I'd managed to find a new spot on the same level so there was an unrestricted view."

Mycroft flips over the cover sheet and starts reading.

SH: "That was an amazing evening."

VT: "What did I tell you? Why go for an artificial kick from drugs when I've got you? We don't need them; you're plenty enough for me."

[ _VT initiates kissing, which is returned by SH with no visible signs of reluctance. The pair moves from the foyer into the living room_ ]

Mycroft almost winces at the comment about no reluctance. Thanks to Ford's extortion letters, he is all too aware that Sherlock's first sexual encounters at the hands of Steven Mason had been reluctant indeed, only made possible by a cocktail of drugs. The sexual abuse forced on the boy had made for the most distressing reading experience in Mycroft's life. Sherlock's subsequent experiences of sex on the streets—in exchange for drugs or money to buy them—had also matched that level of alarming. His brother has never experienced what others would consider a "normal" sexual relationship. His vulnerability and lack of understanding about what is or is not acceptable has always made Mycroft worry. This is why, although Baker has done an admirable job with the surveillance material, Mycroft must reject his assessment of the nature of the situation. He has no context since he doesn't know Sherlock's weaknesses.

Victor Trevor may not be a drug dealer, but he poses no less a threat to Sherlock's mental stability. As he considers the situation, Mycroft realises conversely that this could be an even _greater_ threat, if Sherlock allows himself to think it is something more than a simple transactional arrangement. Sherlock has always been the more emotional one of the two of them, and the promise of someone breaking the cycle of solitude brought on by his peculiarities might just be the flame to a moth, exposing him to the ulterior motives of the other person involved. When it ends badly, as it will, the fall-out will be all the more devastating.

The sigh that Mycroft has been restraining, slips out. Ignoring the fact that Baker is now looking at him curiously, he resumes reading.

VT: "Can you please put that stuff back where you found it? Makes me nervous that it's just sitting there in plain sight."

[ _SH returns syringes to medical kit and replaces it in the bathroom cabinet. The plastic bag of white powder is returned to the kitchen, where the metal counter-top canister of sugar is emptied into a bowl, the packet inserted into the bottom of the canister and the sugar is then put back into the canister; no further contact is made with the packet for the duration of their stay in the flat]_

VT: "Good. I don't understand why you wanted to leave it out."

SH: "Think of it as a test of willpower. Ever heard of the marshmallow test? It's an experiment in deferred gratification. I knew Simon was likely to have a stash hidden somewhere; he works in the City and given his earnings, he'd be thought of as odd by his peers if he wasn't indulging in some nose candy when in their company. Finding the stash last night was important because I just couldn't stop thinking about it until I found it. As I said this morning, I thought I might need it and you needed to know that. I left it out on the table so you'd ask about it."

[ _VT embraces Sherlock_ ]

VT: "I like the honesty. You could have hidden it; taken some and lied about it. It was… brave of you to tell me, and to tell me why you were tempted. You are extraordinary, you know, and I am very, very lucky."

SH: "The thing about the marshmallow test––it's deferred gratification, but the subject does get the marshmallow in the end; two even if they are able to wait for the ten minutes. People—therapists, my brother, especially my brother—endlessly lecture me about the dangers of relapse; they just don't get it. They'd have said that the moment I found it I should have flushed it down the sink to remove the temptation. But, that doesn't work. It makes the craving worse, knowing I can't have it when I want it. The trick is knowing it's there and deciding to delay the moment, again and again."

VT: "But you turned down that girl who offered us the E? Using the logic you just described. wouldn't it have made sense to take it but not, well, take it?"

SH: "That was more a case of you being with me, and that fact that we'd had the conversation before we went out. You need to understand that for me, either the cocaine or the E would have made this evening easier. The stimulant just cuts through all the clatter going on, calms me down, lets me focus. I wouldn't have had to leave the concert hall before the interval if I'd taken it. Thankfully, the loo there isn't the sort of place one would expect to score. Besides, _you_ helped."

VT: "How?"

SH: "You are a considerable distraction. And, stimulation of a different kind made me think I could last it out at the club; doing something physical helps."

VT: "Was that why you agreed to go dancing again tonight?"

SH: "Before last night, I had never been to a club. I hadn't realised that the dancing could work like that. Think of it as an experiment: I wanted to know how different it would be without the E. If I could still manage."

VT: "Then let's see what I can do to distract you right now."

[ _The pair enter the bedroom and sexual intimacy ensues. The next activity in the flat outside of the bedroom is recorded at 11.23 on Sunday._ ]

As the car passes over the River Brent, Mycroft glances up from the transcript. "Cut a long story short, Mister Baker. When did he succumb to the temptation? His abstinence has never been long-lived."

"To the best of my knowledge, sir, the Ecstasy he took at the club on Friday evening remains the one and only lapse. Although there are parts of recorded conversations which establish that he had ingested the same substance that evening, Mister Trevor seems rather a keen advocate of sobriety. During our surveillance of the London flat he repeatedly expressed to SH the opinion that he would not approve of the cocaine. We tracked the pair on a cycling trip to Oxford and back the weekend after their London trip, and there was no evidence at all of drug use. So far, the issue has not arisen again over the past ten days, which seems to be… a good thing, sir."

Mycroft wants to scoff at such optimism. Since Baker has no real knowledge of Sherlock before the start of February, he will be judging without understanding the true extent of the boy's addiction and what had led to it in the first place. Whatever else Victor Trevor is, Mycroft is under no illusions that the boy could be a solution to any of Sherlock's problems.

"And what have you been able to discover about Trevor's previous sexual history? I know about the fiancée, but what about before she appeared on the scene? Or, could he have been seeing someone on the side, concealing homosexuality behind the cover of his engagement?"

"No sir. We've not been able to uncover any previous sexual contact with a male. His father is known in the East Anglian social scene as being rather vocally homophobic. Some of the transcribed... conversations… between the targets in the bedroom suggest that he is new to this kind of relationship."

This time Mycroft doesn't even try to stop the sigh. Trust Sherlock to get wrapped up with someone whose sexual orientation may not even be stable—someone to whom this might be nothing but youthful experimentation. _This is going to end badly._

As the car exits the M4 and drops off the elevated section onto the West Way, Mycroft starts to leaf through the rest of the transcript.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o

"Thank you, Doctor Cohen, for being willing to see me on such short notice."

"It's not like I have other patients wanting to see me at this ungodly hour."

If there is a trace of brittleness in her retort, Mycroft knows that he has rather press-ganged her into this meeting. The petite psychiatrist eventually agreed to meet him at seven o'clock on Saturday morning at her office in North Hampstead—a private practice consultation room that is discretely lacking even a brass plaque that could identify it as anything other than an ordinary home on a tree-lined street.

As she pours him a cup of coffee, Mycroft notices that her salt and pepper hair has turned a more decidedly grey shade since he last saw her three years ago. The half-empty mug by her chair is her second of the morning, she tells him.

Mycroft does not pick up the beverage served. "I regret the inconvenience but time is short, and I must have an opportunity to discuss the situation with the only person who knows the past ten years of Sherlock's life almost as well as I do. In your professional capacity you have proven very skilled at helping him negotiate difficult life events, I might add."

That gets him a raised eyebrow. "I might have said that at times, Mycroft, I've known him rather _better_ than you have. But not recently. Something major must be going on if you are motivated to flatter me. You said on the phone that you've been away from the country—and Sherlock—for the past eight weeks, but suddenly you press for an urgent consultation. I haven't seen or spoken to Sherlock in two years, so what is the problem and why do you think I could be of any help at all?"

"He's formed a relationship with another Cambridge student, a final year rugby player studying _land economy_ —if you can believe it. Sherlock's moved into the flat rented by this person, one Victor Trevor. I have confirmation that they are intimate, and constantly in each other's company, class schedules allowing." He does not attempt to calm his pressing tone; no need for absolute concealment of his own state of mind when in the presence of Doctor Cohen. It's best if she realises the gravity of the situation without delay.

She takes her seat again, looking at him with a perplexed expression. "And?"

"That fact alone should be enough to set off alarm bells, but if you require more, then let me explain that as a result of this liaison of his, Sherlock has already been the victim of two assaults organised by the student's fiancée who objected to her place being usurped by my brother. First, he was deeply humiliated in a manner that became public knowledge. Second, the fiancée set the rugby second team on him and he ended up in hospital with a broken nose, concussion and cracked ribs."

That makes Esther raise her eyebrows in surprise. "Interesting. If Sherlock is willing to face up to that kind of threat and not run for cover, then he must really like this boy."

"When I quizzed him about the assault at Christmas, he insisted that this Victor Trevor was a friend. Now, I have evidence of a drug relapse several weeks ago, around the time that the shift in the nature of their relationship appeared to have happened. Since then, the pair has been seen at various dance clubs in both Cambridge and London, where drugs are known to be taken."

"Is this occasional use, or are we talking about a full relapse?"

"As yet, the former. My sources point to a singular event, but there is no way to be certain."

Cohen sighs, and then gives Mycroft a patient smile "And if it is just the one time, this is cause for alarm in what way?"

"Any drug use has to be suspicious!" If he is sounding priggishly moralistic, so be it. "Any lapse in judgment always needs to be dealt with if Sherlock is not to misinterpret leniency as acquiescence in his misbehaviour."

"Mycroft, he's twenty years old and a university student. Experimentation is something just about everyone goes through. If this 'singular event' has not lead to continued use, then it might mean that he's exhibiting constructive skills in keeping clean. Even you must have pushed the envelope of propriety a bit."

He raises a sceptical eyebrow. "On the contrary, Doctor Cohen. I had duties and responsibilities —to Parham, to Sherlock—that precluded any such frivolities. Youthful indiscretions are not my area."

As soon as this slightly sanctimonious statement escapes his lips, Mycroft has to deal with the hypocrisy of it. His failings are not the sort that could be dismissed as university high jinks. Not many of his Balliol peer group could be said to have been implicated in not one but two murders, nor are they likely to have been victims of systemic blackmail. His failings may be about to be covered up when Ford is exiled to Georgia, but at least the crimes were committed with a calculated effort to protect another, rather than being the result of sexual frustration, immaturity, and social isolation. Mycroft's other crimes and misdemeanours can be excused as being in the line of duty and protected by the same confidentiality extended to all field agents.

She seems unimpressed by his concern, shrugging. "As long as it's under control, and the relationship is a healthy one, surely this is just a sign of him growing up? Did you really think he would never develop an intimate attachment to anyone at all?"

"When it comes to him, there is no such thing as a healthy relationship! Considering what we both know about his sexual history, how could those experiences serve as a foundation for anything else further harm? He's always been reckless, and he doesn't have the skills to consider the consequences of entangling himself like this—as proven by the scandal the beginning of this relationship has already caused at Cambridge."

Mycroft realises that his posture has changed without him noticing. He's sitting up, leaning forward, hands on knees. He decides it isn't worth being self-conscious; he needs Doctor Cohen to understand the seriousness of the threat.

"It's not like this is the first time. Need I remind you of the incident at Harrow with his Chemistry lab partner? This is what happens when Sherlock gets involved with other people. And what about when his Chemistry teacher, Mister McGarry, died? When that relationship ended, Sherlock ran away to the streets of London and his misfortune pushed him into underage sex and the start of his drug addiction."

He draws a breath, struggles to rein his emotions back under control. "Doctor Cohen, there is a very good reason why Sherlock doesn't have friends. He is incapable of sustaining the social reciprocity needed and he is heedless of the social modalities needed to protect himself from the consequences of his all-too-brutal honesty. Hopelessly naïve, it is inescapable that Sherlock will at some point wreck this relationship. But, worse than whatever that chain of events turns out to be is the aftermath. He'll be utterly devastated, and I would have assumed that you of all people would be appreciative of how poor his coping skills will be in such a situation."

Mycroft gives up trying to control the visible signs of his frustration. Esther Cohen has known him for too many years for him to hide his distress. Not only is she a very astute psychiatrist, she's already seen Mycroft in the depths of despair when Sherlock had been institutionalised at ten; she been instrumental in his brother's release from the control of a father who had no time or understanding for an autistic child**. She's been one of the very few, perhaps the only one privy to Mycroft's deepest worries. When he had served overseas, learning the ropes of his career, he'd trusted Doctor Cohen to keep Sherlock safe during his schooling at Harrow. _How can she not see the danger here?_

"Deep breaths, Mycroft. You are getting very worked up over possibilities, not certainties. Instead of preparing for the worst and planning damage control, what you could—and should—be doing is considering what could be done to _help_ Sherlock make this relationship a safer one. Despite your worries, I have yet to hear a single thing that would point to this Victor Trevor being a harmful influence at present."

"His fiancée––"

"––is no longer a part of his life, according to you. And good riddance, I presume. Sherlock does not appear to be using drugs at present, but what about the other boy?"

"No," Mycroft admits. "He does not condone such things."

"Has Sherlock's coursework suffered as a result of this relationship?"

"No," Mycroft admits yet again. "Trevor has been assisting with his laboratory work, helping him keep to the deadlines agreed upon with his academic supervisor."

"Does this student know about Sherlock being on the Spectrum?"

"Of course, he does! I made that clear to the boy the very first time I had a conversation with him, which, incidentally, took place over Sherlock's hospital bed. Their acquaintance began when he allowed his fiancée's dog to bite right through Sherlock's Achilles tendon, hobbling him for two and a half months. This was followed by first that one assault that could just about be dismissed as a prank gone bad, but then came the second that certainly could not. I would have pressed charges if I'd thought Sherlock could withstand the criminal proceedings as the victim; at least seven people were involved." Mycroft takes that deep breath, trying to calm himself, but is finding it hard, very hard.

He is mystified by Doctor Cohen's apparent acceptance of Sherlock's dalliance. He'd come to see her on his way up to Cambridge in the hope of securing her as an ally and getting advice on how best to convince Sherlock to end this unfortunate relationship.

"I'm going to assume you are on your way to see Sherlock. If you want my advice—and I suspect that is why you rousted me out of bed this morning—then here it is. Maybe this time, you should do a lot less talking and a lot more listening. Frame your questions in a way that is _not_ judgmental. He'll be wrong-footed by that, if nothing else, which just might coax forth more openness and honesty than he would usually accord you. Sherlock believes you always assume the worst of him; that's a bad habit of yours that he associates most strongly with your father, by the way. If, for once, you tried a more constructive approach, he might open up about what he is thinking and feeling about this relationship."

Mycroft shakes his head. "He will be able to deduce my real motives, whatever ploy I attempt."

Now Esther gives him a stern glare. "Therein lies the problem: the fact that you see the need for a ploy in the first place. If that is the only approach you are willing to consider—scheming to end the relationship—then maybe you need to reconsider having this meeting." She leans forward in the chair. "Now listen to me, not as psychiatrist about a patient, but as someone who has your best interests at heart. You need to slow down and think through the consequences of going up to Cambridge, all guns blazing."

"Sherlock is twenty years old. He is an adult, a high-functioning person on the Spectrum who deserves a chance to make his own mistakes and to _learn_ from them. I have not met this Victor Trevor you speak of, so I can't say whether he is good for Sherlock in a long-term context. But, I do know that if he is willing to count him as a friend first, and that a sexual relationship developed afterwards, then that is definitely, _definitely_ a step in the right direction. It is one you should be applauding and not berating him for. You can't wrap him in cotton wool, Mycroft. Such an approach is not _that_ different from locking him up in an institution just because you are afraid of what _might_ happen."

For a moment, Mycroft is struck dumb. He opens his mouth to protest without having even selected the words to use.

Doctor Cohen is ahead of him, her hand already raised to halt his denial. "If—and do pay attention to my choice of word— _if_ this relationship fails, and it may fail not because of who Sherlock is but because these things simply happen, then the trust you succeed or fail in building now will determine whether you will be a person to which he would turn for support, instead of choosing a much more destructive outlet for his emotions."

She leans back in the chair, calmer. "I'm going to say this once, Mycroft, and please don't take it the wrong way. You must be very careful to avoid becoming for Sherlock someone too much like your father. He _needs_ you to love him enough to let him try."

Her rebuke stings; it reminds Mycroft of what his mother had asked him to do, in those last days before she died.

The silence lengthens, until he breaks it by pushing his chair back.

"Thank you, Doctor Cohen. I am sorry to have interrupted your weekend, especially at such an early hour." He retreats into civility, standing up and smiling as pleasantly as he is able. "Please send your invoice to my attention at Parham. Good morning."

As he turns for the door, Esther stands up. "I will do no such thing, Mycroft Holmes. This conversation has not been a medical consultation; at the moment, Sherlock is not my patient, and neither are you. Consider this to be advice from a friend. I wish you good luck, Mycroft. You both deserve it."

o0o0o0o0o0o0o

The long, leisurely bath Sherlock has just treated himself to has helped him wake up. Victor is always happy to do his in-and-out shower before getting breakfast underway, which leaves the bathroom clear for such an indulgence. Sherlock did switch the station on the bathroom radio that Victor likes to have on in the mornings; "Farming Today" on BBC Radio Four pales in relaxing effect to Classic FM.

This morning, both of them are moving a little slowly, having been out until past three o'clock at Cindy's. It may be the largest dance club in Cambridge, but the Lion Yard venue is still tiny in comparison to Heaven. Still, on a Friday night, it provides a nice break from the lab and the classroom, and it does have the merit of being only a ten-minute walk from the flat. As long as the foul late March weather keeps on blowing a gale straight out of the Urals, Sherlock is heeding Victor's advice to keep their bikes hanging up in the hall.

As has become their habit, though they'd come back hot and sweaty from the dancing they'd decided against cleaning up, because what they'd got up to after arriving home made them even more hot and sweaty. Sherlock has decided that sex after dancing is one of his favourite things; there is something about having to barely behave in public while being in close proximity for several hours that intensifies the pleasure of letting it all go when they get home.

He smirks as he uses his micro-fibre towel to blot the moisture away from his curls. _Deferred gratification, indeed._

He's put on his jeans and a Cambridge sweatshirt but is still barefoot. Combing his fingers through his hair, he starts down the stairs but the voices from the kitchen stops him in his tracks: as he listens, Sherlock realises that Victor is not alone.

What is more, he instantly recognises to whom Victor is talking.

Anger propels him into the kitchen.

"What are you doing here?" The snarl in his tone makes Victor look up, startled from where he had been about to dish out a fried egg onto the third plate that has been set on the breakfast bar.

"Eating a breakfast kindly prepared by your flatmate. Good of you to join us." Mycroft's reply is mild—completely devoid of the expected sarcasm.

 _It's so bloody typical that he wouldn't even give advance warning of his intrusion._

Sherlock narrows his eyes, scanning his brother just as intensely as he is being examined in return. "Shouldn't you be at one of your two homes, letting your own staff feed you up rather than darkening our door?" He slides into the bar stool farthest away from his brother and moves his plate, cutlery and tea mug along to his new location in a rather pointed fashion.

Victor smirks as he dishes out two fried eggs onto Sherlock's plate—to join the bacon, grilled tomatoes and baked beans already there. "Please play nice, you two."

Sherlock doesn't break the glare he's directing at his brother. The good mood he'd had in the bath tub had evaporated the moment he realised who the intruder was. "I'd prefer not to 'play' at all. Isn't there some war or other that you should be interfering with in the Caucasus? That's where you've been for the past two months. Shame it couldn't have become a more permanent posting."

He watches Mycroft trying to work out how he's deduced the location of his latest trip. Smiling, he heaps a little more fuel onto the fire. "Want one of my eggs? You must be hungry after losing all that weight. Probably due to the stressful mission, trying to keep your superior happy while you rootle about in your network of paid traitors."

Mycroft fails to rise to the bait. "I'm fine."

The calm response surprises Sherlock. Usually a taunt about the man's weight and dieting attempts are enough to provoke a hostile and most condescending reaction. The presence of the third party must be inhibiting his usual invective. That's strange—he hasn't minced his words in Victor's presence before.

Sherlock decides to crank up the pressure. "' _Fine'?_ I'll remember that comment the next time you criticise me for my smoking habits. I've given up recently, had you noticed? Probably not, since anything positive I ever do, you consider meaningless."

"Sherlock." Victor's voice is quiet, and while not quite a warning, he is clearly trying to defuse the tension. "Was it a productive trip, then?" he asks Mycroft and takes a bite of a toast he has buttered.

"It served its purpose. Of course, I am delighted to learn you have given up smoking," he adds, watching Sherlock ever so patiently.

 _What the hell is going on here?_ Why is Mycroft eating eggs and being civil?

"Envious is what you are, because you've given into weakness and taken it up again and, by the scent that you are exuding at the moment, it's Sobranie Black Russians." Sherlock leans a bit closer to his brother and gives an exaggerated sniff. "Definitely the version made to suit Russian tastes, rather than the milder stuff that you can get in Britain."

Sherlock has now gotten into the stride of his deducing. "You're _tired._ Didn't sleep much last night, but that's not due to jet lag since it's only two or three hours' time difference. No, this time the stress of field work and the execrable quality of food in the former soviet socialist world has been not only an effective appetite suppressant, but has led to insomnia, I'd say. Indigestion? Maybe you should see someone about that." Smirking, Sherlock tucks into the dollop of baked beans that he has discovered he rather likes with the bacon that Victor usually cooks for a weekend breakfast. On weekdays he insists on dull and healthy; the legacy of a college sports career.

Mycroft primly finishes mopping up the egg yolk on his plate with the last bit of his toast. "Whereas you, brother mine, appear to be both well-fed and well-rested in this little nest of domestic bliss you've infiltrated. You've actually put _on_ weight, to which kicking the nicotine addiction may have contributed; shame you had that relapse of your other addiction down in London. Assuming Victor's encouragement has contributed to your decision to give up smoking, he must have a thick hide to deal with all the wailing and gnashing of teeth that have greeted your previous efforts. Perhaps this experience has prepared him for the future? He hasn't had the pleasure _yet_ of dealing with you in drug withdrawal."

Victor puts down his fork and the look he gives Sherlock is slightly inquisitive. They haven't discussed any of this after London. He hasn't _taken_ anything after London.

"That's in the past, now, isn't it?" Victor asks carefully.

Sherlock snorts, then nods towards Mycroft. "He's never going to believe that."

"I am a realist, Mister Trevor."

Mycroft then directs his attention back to Sherlock. "In your case, the weight gain is good, as are the other habits you have adopted due to someone in close proximity serving as a good example." He takes a sip of coffee from a rather well-worn Cambridge Rugby Football Club mug. "Getting three balanced meals a day down you? His persuasive skills must be exemplary. What you are giving him in return must be amazing."

Sherlock wants to groan. Isn't it enough that Mycroft had embarrassed them both with his insinuations at Christmas? "Stop it."

Wiping his hands on his napkin and tossing it onto the counter-top, Mycroft continues, "If he is as good in bed as he is in the kitchen, then you've hit the proverbial jackpot, _brother mine_."

Victor chokes a bit, swallows his mouthful of fried egg and clears his throat. "Lord Holmes, I would appreciate it if you didn't talk as if I wasn't in the room. I am here, and happy to be civil, despite my previous experiences with you on the phone and in person."

The corner of Sherlock's mouth hitches up. No one ever talks to Mycroft like that, and Victor has an uncanny skill of doing so while barely skirting the line where civility ends. By claiming the moral high ground usually occupied by Mycroft, Victor has unwittingly exacerbated the man's discomfort. And, his adding that wretched title into the mix makes Victor a paragon of virtuous politeness that will grate even more.

"I think it's best that we all just… move the conversation on," Victor suggests nonchalantly and grabs the teapot so that he can top up his mug.

Sherlock wants to hug him.

Mycroft, on the other hand, expels one of his aristocratic sniffs and starts to open his mouth. But, before he can unleash whatever caustic retort he's come up with, Sherlock interjects, "He is _that_ good, Mycroft, in more ways that you can imagine. And yes, as even you have to admit, my quality of life has improved immensely thanks to him. I'm fitter, healthier, and happier than I have ever been. Shame you aren't capable of fostering a similar degree of attachment from someone—might do something to address your obvious personal failings. Ah, well, at least you have your work to keep you company, since no one else will. Speaking of which, why aren't you seeing to it, rather than bothering us?"

Taking a bite of toast and munching, Sherlock is enjoying this breakfast. _Fresh roasted brother is rather tasty._

"I've come to see how you are, of course. It's something siblings do." Mycroft accompanies this with one of his fake smiles.

"Confess, brother. You wanted to find me in dire straits so you could do your rescue routine yet again." Sherlock is _relishing_ this, making his brother feel awkward; it's been rare that he's had the upper hand. "You probably just thought your minions were falling down on the job because they haven't been reporting any disasters recently. What a frightful waste of public money; you must be feeling so very distraught and purposeless."

"On the contrary. I am pleased to see you have made a good recovery from the injuries you sustained at Christmas. All this novel… _physical exercise_ … truly must be doing you good."

The barbed innuendo is clear. But, Sherlock is relieved when Victor—again—deflects the sarcastic comment by taking it at face value. "You are so right! Sherlock's cycling has been brilliant; it sure beat physio when it came to helping heal his leg. And, he's put on enough muscle elsewhere that he's getting much better at it than I am. Clearly more of a sprinter than me. I can just about manage to keep up, so we're going to be cycling together from here down to Colton for the Easter Break."

 _'Thank you'_ is what Sherlock tries to signal his partner with a look over the mug of tea he's holding. He is relieved that Victor has dropped this into the conversation; he's been dreading the argument that Mycroft is likely to raise over their plans.

That argument seems imminent, when Mycroft stands up, chin jutted slightly up in sudden indignant determination. "Perhaps Sherlock and I could discuss a few things in private? I'm sure you have things to do, Mister Trevor."

Victor looks over at Sherlock, his eyes asking the question of whether he should insist on remaining present. Sherlock shakes his head, deciding that it might just be quicker if he tells his brother to piss off in private.

Victor sees this and starts to clear the empty plates, mugs and cutlery, taking them over to the sink. "The front room is just the place. Don't mind me; I'll be doing the washing up back here. If you need me, just give a shout." These last words carry a weight that signals they are not a mere platitude.

Sherlock has never had anyone on his side when it comes to Mycroft. Even on the rare occasion when other people have disagreed with his brother over how to deal with him, they have still been hired hands and minions.

He still has a hard time believing what has happened. That he's here with Victor—not because of an obligation but because this is what they both want. The fact that Mycroft clearly thinks there's something inherently wrong with that is more insulting than most of the unwelcome opinions he has imposed on Sherlock over the years.

As soon as the door to the small living room closes behind them, Mycroft drops his smile. "Do you really know what you are doing? This little domestic drama of yours––how can you not see that it's going to end very badly?"

Sherlock drops sideways onto one of the leather chairs, dangling his legs over the arm. He wants to project an air of nonchalance. "Says who?"

There is a sigh from Mycroft. "If a broken nose, cracked ribs and a concussion weren't enough to convince you at Christmas, what about his family? Have you given one moment's thought to what is going to happen when Trevor Senior discovers your little affair?"

He should have known the civility over breakfast was nothing but a charade. It's always these games, this inability of Mycroft's to let him be, his insistence on ruining every choice he tries to make under the pretence of protecting him. _Why do you always have to do this?_ Sherlock forces on a tight smile. "Perhaps you and his father can bond over the tragedy that we don't care what either of you thinks."

Mycroft shakes his head. "I might believe that of you, but not of your new... _pal_. He's far too _conventional_. Being affiliated with you has already cost him his rugby team captaincy, his fiancée, and his entire circle of friends. There will come a point when being with you is going to cost him too much, pose too big a challenge, and he will leave you. What then, brother mine? Can you deal with the loss? Or will this set off another downward spiral? You do have some form on that front."

" _How dare you!"_ Sherlock is on his feet, propelled there by fury. "You know nothing about Victor, nothing at all. And you know nothing about me, either. For years, I've put up with your sanctimonious preaching about how difficult it is for anyone to tolerate me, how I am incapable of sustaining a relationship, and how no one is ever going to accept me as I am. How is that supposed to be good for me? What if you're just wrong? How would _you_ like it if you had to spend your entire bloody life listening to someone telling you how _no one will ever want you_!"

Finally, something shifts in Mycroft's expression; the steel breaks a little, revealing surprise and the briefest inkling of discomfort. _Good._

Sherlock closes the distance between them and stares his brother down. "Piss _off_. We don't need you here. Go back to London and play your stupid mind games with other people—and take your minions with you while you're at it. I know that there are listening devices planted here in the flat and I've left them in place so you'd know that I am doing just fine without you. But, as of today, they're gone, and every time they get replaced, they'll end up in a skip. As for the three people you've got following me, the fact that they don't know that I spotted them weeks ago tells you everything you need to know about their incompetence. If you don't stop this abuse of your position and public money, then I swear I will blow the whistle by writing to your boss and half the bloody Parliament if I have to. Back off and stay away, Mycroft. _We_ have no use for your advice or your bloody-minded prognostications."

Sherlock's voice must have risen in volume, because there is a soft knock on the door, and Victor pops his head in. "Everything alright?"

Sherlock leans his hip on the armchair, his fingers curling around the edge of the back rest. "Everything's _fine_ because my brother is just leaving. Even someone as stupid as he is should be able to find their way to the front door without assistance."

Author's Notes: **This is covered in Periodic Tales Series, including Lithium Chapter 2 and 3, Carbon, chapters 1-3, and Caesium, chapter 1.


	30. Chapter 30

**Chapter Thirty Deception**

* * *

 _Clunk._ Sherlock smiles at the sound and the feel of the derailleur shifting; there is something almost sensual about the way the variable ratio transmission of his bike responds. A thumb click at exactly the right moment between the upward and downward strokes of his legs, a fragment of time as the mechanism disengages the chain from one sprocket and moves it over to the next, just as the next downward stroke sends full power into the higher gear. The laws of mechanics in action; human and machine in perfect, synchronous harmony.

As they leave the village, the road straightens, and the near absence of traffic makes him want to coax a bit more speed. He'd fitted a vintage Shimano 600 derailleur to the bike two weeks ago, after spending an afternoon trying to explain to Victor about the mathematics involved in the shift and actuation ratios of the different cable lengths in the various systems. This trip to Colton Grange is the first significant road test, and he's loving the responsiveness of the different mechanism.

They'd set out from Cambridge after lunch; the trip shouldn't take more than two and half hours. Up the A 10 north through Ely and beyond, before turning off eastwards at Southery on the Bll60. They're a few minutes past the quaintly named Methwold, a fact which momentarily distracts Sherlock, leading him to contemplate the chemical structure of C10H15N—also known as methamphetamine. He loses his concentration on their route, and only in the last second manages to swerve the bike to miss a nasty pothole in the narrow country road.

He glances behind to warn Victor, but there is no one cycling behind him. Slowing down and making sure he isn't about to hit anything in front, he looks back again and notices that Victor has pulled his bike over to the side of the road, back at the junction with a farm track, almost eight hundred meters behind.

After another quick look ahead to make sure there is no oncoming traffic, Sherlock brakes sharply before executing a sharp U-turn and sprinting back.

"Problem?" He's off his own bike in one fluid movement, eyes focused on the rear wheel of Victor's bike. The tyre doesn't look flat; perhaps there's a problem with the gears? If that's the case then, after all his tinkering with the Shimano, Sherlock is confident he could fix whatever has come up.

"Nope." Victor's already unclipped his cleats from the pedals, taken off his helmet and is pulling off his sunglasses, too. "At least, not with the bike."

That makes Sherlock look closely at his impressively muscular legs. The boy's sartorius is his favourite: the longest muscle in the human body and a very lean one, Sherlock loves to trace its exquisite definition, the result of all those years of line-out practice. But, Victor isn't rubbing it or a calf muscle which would indicate a cramp.

"What's bothering you?"

A rueful laugh. "Maybe it's best to call it a bad case of procrastination. We need to talk before we get any closer to home." He is looking everywhere but at Sherlock, and then wheels the bike further away from the road. The farm track is gated, and he walks the bike over to it, leaning it up against the metal bars.

Mystified, Sherlock does the same. He really hates walking anywhere when wearing his cycling shoes; there is something about that single big cleat at the ball of his foot that upsets his balance and provides a constant irritant, but he follows Victor over to the grass verge and sits down beside him.

Shoulders slumped, with his arms over his knees and his head looking down at the dusty track, Victor doesn't look at all happy. Over the past three months of their living together, Sherlock has developed some skill at being able to deduce the boy's mood, and it seems that the blues that have crept in during the last week or so have evolved into despondency.

It's a sharp contrast with the earliest stages of their relationship. As far as Sherlock could tell, they had both been happy after spending Victor's birthday in London—happy _together_. What had been a friendship had deepened before Victor had reached out at Heaven, given Sherlock the revelation that he wasn't alone in hoping they might be more. What had happened that weekend opened their eyes wide about their feelings for each other and established that they both wanted to take their time exploring the significance of it.

That weekend had changed everything.

Away from the routine of class work and lab, the walls of convention were breached and they had an opportunity to talk openly about what they'd kept hidden from each other. Oddly, looking back on it, Sherlock thinks that the most surprising thing hadn't been the sex. For him, the most novel thing had been the confidence with which he found himself telling Victor things he'd sought to conceal all his life. With Victor that Saturday morning he'd had his first-ever sensible adult conversation about why he took drugs. No one had even wanted to listen, to try to understand before expressing moral outrage and attempting to cart him off to rehab. He had admitted to Victor that he took them so that he could try to feel and act normally, and when Victor made it clear that he wanted Sherlock for who he really is, rather than what happened when he was under the influence of drugs, Sherlock found it easier than ever to ignore the siren call of cravings.

It had helped that Victor had his own secrets to share that weekend—things about which he hadn't even been honest to himself before. Of course, Sherlock had known that it's not a simple thing for most, admitting to not being straight, and it was a strange experience being the first person to whom someone would admit such a thing. People don't usually want to talk to him about personal stuff. If anything, they've told him off for being arrogant or nosey and warned him to stay out of those things. He's not quite sure what he's done to earn such trust from Victor. It's a precious gift and sometimes Sherlock worries that he will do something or say something wrong that will make Victor regret giving him that trust.

The two days in London had passed in a blur, both of them more and more willing to share about their past experiences, and how they wanted things to be different this time. Sherlock had returned to Cambridge on a high, a euphoria that didn't depend on chemical stimulants to sustain it. Above all else, he'd learned to trust Victor—to trust that he could talk about what he was feeling without fear of being ridiculed or rejected.

As a result of being honest about how overwhelmed they both were, they took things slowly for the first month. Sex turned out to be the easy part. What Sherlock found both more challenging and yet more rewarding were the casual things of intimacy. The touching, sharing a bed, being so comfortable in each other's company that he could actually relax and enjoy it, rather than being fearful of what Victor might or might not be thinking. It took some time to stop worrying about what he was supposed to do, how to reciprocate. With sex there were patterns and clear goals; with all these other casual, small things there was no roadmap and sometimes Sherlock had felt a little lost. Anything he did, though, Victor seemed eager to participate in, For the first time in his life, Sherlock felt safe; Victor was solicitous and astoundingly aware of how great a challenge some forms of intimacy might be for his partner. It had been a shock at first, realising that someone actually _cared_ about what he was feeling. Sherlock took time to explain his sensory issues, and Victor just _accepted_ them, without comment or criticism.

Of course, there were occasions when he did or said something that was unexpected or odd, but most of the time, Victor would just smile or even laugh, ruffle his hair and call him a "nutter" or "mad scientist" in an affectionate way. He never uses these terms outside the flat, presumably to avoid embarrassment. They are the first nicknames Sherlock remembers having received which carry no malice at all.

Victor's affection is both bewildering and wonderful and Sherlock cannot imagine ever getting enough of investigating his habits, thoughts and his body. " _I'm all yours,_ " he often says with a laugh, allowing Sherlock to take his time to explore before things get more heated up in bed. It's still a revelation that he's allowed all that, to concentrate on what he wants and likes instead of feverishly trying to calculate the fastest and most effective way to get things over with by fulfilling someone else's expectations.

All this had culminated in the morning when Mycroft had appeared out of the blue. Sherlock had the confidence to be able to tell him to piss off, because he believed that he was making not just the friendship that was their foundation, but something even _better_ work—for the first time ever in his life. Despite all the dire predictions and condescending lectures from various people on his supposed incapability for anything like this all through his teenage years, he is clearly succeeding in an intimate relationship. That fact makes him proud and happy in a way he'd never anticipated, and awareness of that had helped him send Mycroft back to whichever circle of hell had belched him out that time. Their communications since have been scarce and to the point. It's a rare thing for Mycroft to respect his wishes like this, and Sherlock has the niggling feeling that he's just waiting for his predictions to come to fruition. _He doesn't know anything about us_.

Yes, without any hesitation Sherlock would say that these have been the best two months of his life. Which is why he is doubly baffled by the change he has seen in Victor's mood over the past couple of days. Without their growing connection he may not have picked up on it at first but looking at Victor right now it's obvious something important is going on. One thing is notable: the change had begun when they started making more detailed plans for the Easter Break. Like storm clouds appearing on the horizon, something has been bothering Victor, but he wouldn't be drawn on the reasons for it. All he would say is that he'd had a lot on his mind, that he'd been _thinking_.

Sherlock had been doing the same—increasingly, as he repeatedly failed to lift Victor's mood. Thinking soon turned into worrying, worrying into the anxiety that is now just one step behind him all the time. At first, he'd tried to rationalise the growing disquiet; perhaps Victor disliked going back to his family home as much as Sherlock does. He rarely, if ever, talks about his father despite the fact that he insists their relationship is alright. If that were the case, then surely he'd be inclined to mention Trevor senior more often than Sherlock is willing to discuss Mycroft. Simply being averse to a boring holiday at the family house would be the best case scenario, because that problem would be solved the minute they returned back to Cambridge.

Over the past week, Sherlock has also been considering what the _worst_ case scenario might be. All he has been able to come up is the possibility that Victor is having second thoughts about some aspect of their relationship, or the entirety of it. But, Sherlock cannot fathom why this could be because nothing has happened that should have altered their relationship. He's aware that relationships have an intense period of initial attraction, and once it recedes weaker relationships may be threatened, but everything he's felt, everything they've talked about and how _good_ it's been seem like ample evidence against that. Sherlock is trying to avoid catastrophising or panicking, but there's been a definite distancing, a kind of withdrawal on Victor's part that makes Sherlock edgy and fearful that he's doing something wrong—that the problem is connected to him. They haven't gone clubbing since Mycroft's visit, and there've been a number of excuses made even to avoid cycling together for the past week. They've mostly just stayed cooped up in the flat, if they weren't in class or the lab.

Last weekend, Sherlock had asked if Victor was coming down with the flu or a cold, since he seemed so quiet and withdrawn. He'd insisted he was fine, but the air hung heavy in the flat and Sherlock had lost sleep over anxiety that there was something he was supposed to notice, something he needed to do differently or not do. Frustrated by his own inadequacies, Sherlock seemed incapable of working out what it could be. He had decided against asking Victor about it again; he's been too afraid of the answer that might come.

Looking at the despondent figure now sitting on the grass, Sherlock reckons that the explanation he's been dreading is about to be given. By his calculations, they are not yet half-way to Colton, about an hour and fifteen minutes away, depending on how long this stop lasts. Victor must have decided it's now or never.

"Well?" Sherlock prompts, biting his lip as he sits down beside Victor. "What do you need to talk about that can't wait until we get to your place?" He digs his thumbnail into the fleshy pad at the tip of his right index finger, using the pain to ward off his growing panic.

Victor takes a breath in and then puffs it out, shaking his head. "Everything." He pulls up an early dandelion from the grassy verge and looks to be contemplating the brash yellow of the petals. "I've been trying to work out how to tell Dad about… everything. About deciding to go to business school. About wanting to start up a biotech business instead of working in his company. About _you_."

Sherlock's heart sinks, and the nail is driven into his finger with even more ferocity. "What about me?"

"Everything about you. About _us._ " Victor looks up and then hands over the dandelion to him with a crooked smile. "You're lucky; your brother may not think much of me, but at least he knows that you are gay, and he isn't judgmental about it."

Sherlock tries to control his expression, but something of his dismay creeps into his tone of voice when he answers, "He judges me all the time about everything else; I suppose my sexual orientation is the least of his concerns. At least you aren't a drug dealer, as he so politely put it."

That makes Victor snort. "Yeah. Well, there's that, too. My dad is not the sort to deal well with your past, should it ever come out. But, the killer as far as he's concerned is that you're gay. He's totally a dinosaur when it comes to homosexuality. I've been terrified for years that he'd totally freak if he ever found out I was bi; it's part of the reason why I kept deluding myself with Chloe."

"This is what's been bothering you recently?"

Victor hums an assent. "I've been trying to work out the best way to manage this process. Weighing up different strategies, you know? Didn't want to bring it up until I had an idea how to manage this. Last night, I finally came to the conclusion that this has to be a phased thing. The first step is to get him to see you for the genius you are, to get used to you and understand that we are friends who in a year's time will be going into business together. That idea I think he can accept and even support, when we get through explaining it all to him. I have to sell it to him properly, otherwise he won't accept that I'm not going into the family business."

 _'To get used to you.'_ This doesn't make it sound like the problem is just that they're both male. Mycroft's words of warning echo around in Sherlock's head even though he tries to silence them.

"I really think it's best if I don't bash him over the head with everything else at the same time," Victor concludes.

"Oh… Everything else, as in us being together?" So, there it is, then: Victor is not ready to tell his father about their relationship; he's embarrassed about them being together. _This hurts._ "Why do you care so much what he thinks?"

Victor shrugs. "He's all I've got when it comes to family. And I'm all he's got. He's always been banking on the idea of me following in his footsteps, taking over the company when he wants to retire. He's always saying that he's done it all for me, built his life so that I'd have it easier than he did. I know it's a guilt–trippy thing to do to a kid, but, you know, it's still there, and he's always tried to give me everything he never had, like a degree at a good uni. It's going to hurt him a lot to discover that I have different ideas. If I just sort of blurt the other thing out—' _hey Dad, so there's also the fact that this isn't just a friend, he's my boyfriend and we've moved in together months and months ago_ ', he's just going stop listening to anything else we have to say."

Sherlock's aware that his face must be betraying some of his dismay, but he can't help it. This revelation of Victor's stings. "So, I'm acceptable as a friend or as a business partner, but not a boyfriend or even a flatmate."

Victor looks over at him, startled. "Hey, don't take it that way. It's _his_ problem, not ours. You know what you mean to me."

 _Does_ he know that right now? Sherlock's anxiety unloosens his tongue enough to ask "If it's his problem, then why does it matter? Why not be honest?"

"I'm sorry, Sherlock, but I'm not as brave as you are. I admire you for your honesty so I'm trying to be honest with you right now because I don't want you subjected to Dad at his worst. When you put those drugs out on the coffee table in London and explained why they were there, it made us talk about why you were feeling scared about not living up to my expectations when it came to sex. God, you are so _honest._ You just blew me away with it and I swear, it's stopped me from taking you for granted. We've learned a lot about each other since then, and it's been really, really good."

It's all true, but what does it have to do with Victor wanting him to hide things?

Victor takes a deep breath, holds it for a moment and then breaths slowly out, as if trying to steel himself. "This is my turn to put things out on the coffee table. I need more time before I tell Dad about you and me and what we are to each other. I'm doing this to protect you and what we've got. If he finds out too soon and in the wrong way, he's going to turn on you. He's a bigoted backwoods Aussie who thinks that being gay is worse than any criminal offense. He's going to blame you for supposedly turning me that way, and just be despicable. I know him. So, we need to think strategically. One thing at a time."

"How long do you plan on keeping him in the dark?"

"Once we convince him that business school is right move for me, I will persuade him that I should stay up in Cambridge this summer. If you can talk your way into an internship, then we can both be together this summer. I can tell him then that you've taken the single room downstairs in the flat, so we can work on the business plan. Day-to-day, between you and me nothing will be any different, but he's not going to know that."

Things already _are_ different, Sherlock wants to argue. Suddenly, there are rules and things to look out for, and Victor is behaving differently towards him.

"You finish your final year while I do the MBA. Sometime around Christmas, we'll take a polished business plan to him and try to talk him into backing us with some capital so we can set the company up by the second term; there are all kinds of incentives going for start-ups at the Cambridge Science Park. Once we get things up and running, I won't need him to support me anymore. By the time he accepts that the plan to be in business together after graduation has financial viability, he'll have had the time to get to know you properly. That we are more than business partners will still come as a shock to him, but because we'll be able to show everybody how good we are together and that we've really thought the future through, I think he just might be able to accept it."

Shocked, Sherlock blurts out: "But, that's a whole year away!"

"Think of it as a long term strategic plan. This sort of thing needs to be timed with precision, Sherlock. Trust me; I know how to manage him, just like you know how to manage Mycroft."

"So, you want me to lie, not just this time but for a whole year."

Victor gives him an apologetic smile he doesn't like at all.

"We'll stay at home with Dad this time just long enough to convince him about business school instead of sticking around for the whole three weeks of Easter Break. If we're lucky, we might only have to stay for a week. You don't have to lie, just avoid the topic."

"That's easier said than done, because it leaves a lot of missing bits in what has happened. Tell me where the red lines are, then—the things I mustn't admit to. Be specific, or I will make a mess of it. Remember what Mycroft said? I'm useless at this stuff unless you make things explicit or give me a script to work to." He tries to keep bitterness from creeping into his tone, but his eyes are prickling and he's swallowing hard. He hadn't meant to eavesdrop when Victor had called his father a month prior, but there had been something strange about the carefree, downright cheery way he'd told his father about bringing someone from Cambridge with him to Colton Grange for the holidays and then proceeded to explain all sorts of positive things about Sherlock. "Am I to play the part of just your _cycling buddy_ , as you put it to him on the phone?"

Victor's face crumples a bit. "Don't overreact, please…" He puts a reassuring arm around Sherlock's shoulders. "This isn't about _you_ ; it's not even about you and me. It's about Dad. You're going to have to trust me that I know how to manage him best."

Sherlock looks out from the track to watch a passing car. "Right, so while you are managing him, I need to manage how I act in your presence. Let me see if I have understood. While at your home, there can be no touching. No kissing and especially no sex. I don't mention that I spent time at the flat this autumn when Chloe was there recovering from a dog bite that I can't admit happened, lest it encourage him to ask awkward questions about how your engagement ended. I don't admit that I am already your flatmate, living at number 6 Saxon Street since October. At a pinch, you might know innocent, harmless facts such as that I play the violin but you'd better pretend that you don't know anything about my food preferences or sensory issues. I have to pass inspection as normal in your father's eyes, lest it jeopardise his views about my suitability as your business partner. We don't tell him that we go out clubbing together, although cycling is rather obvious and manly enough to pass in his eyes, even if it isn't rugby. We have to be careful not to trip up on the small details; he already knows that you spent the weekend in London at Simon's flat. but if it comes up do I have to lie about being there, too? What if he talks to Simon?"

Victor looks a little shell-shocked at the rapid-fire delivery of this litany of don'ts. "We shouldn't have to worry about Simon. He knows what Dad's like."

Sherlock picks up his helmet and sunglasses, then gets to his feet, moving out of under Victor's arm on his shoulders. "It isn't as straightforward as you think, pretending that the past six months haven't happened."

Victor gets up, too, and goes to the gate to retrieve his bike. "It's only a week or so. We can manage this. It will be worth it in the end, when everything goes according to plan."

oOoOoOoOo

Sherlock's discomfort at their conversation drives him to accelerate the pace, leaving Victor struggling to keep up. Their cross country route from Mundford to Watton is sparsely trafficked but once they get onto the B1108 towards Norwich, they keep getting separated by cars getting between them. Sherlock doesn't look back once until he gets to the left turning on Back Lane just before Barford. There, he stops to get his breath back. When Victor catches up, Sherlock waves him on without a word, letting local knowledge take precedence. He follows Victor the last one and half miles down the single-track road between hedgerows and trees. Once they cross the bridge over the River Yare, the vistas widen to open fields where the winter wheat is just starting to grow again after the cold dormant period.

Victor takes a hard left onto Church Lane and then, after they pass the square and a rather squat tower, he turns right before stopping in a wide paved area on the left side of the road, with a red brick wall on either side of metal gates.

Sherlock pulls up behind just as he can hear Victor announce to the wall-mounted speaker, "We're here."

The electric gates slowly open and the pair cycle through along a curving driveway that ends in a courtyard with a round fountain, in front of a double-fronted, two-storey modern house.

Waiting at the front door, Victor's father welcomes Sherlock to Colton Grange with a bone-crushing handshake. "I'm Jack Trevor. Any friend of Victor's is welcome in this house. Nice to meet you, Sherlock."

"Mister Trevor." As he carefully extricates his hand, Sherlock deals with first impressions. Jack is a thick-set burly man almost as tall as Victor, but in whom muscle has turned softer with age and a more sedentary life. A shock of grizzled hair over a brown, weather-beaten face frames a pair of blue eyes which are keen to the verge of fierceness. He's wearing an old white shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows, and his stained trousers are held up by a pair of red braces. Into the front left pocket of his trousers a pair of gardening gloves have been stuffed, but there's no mistaking that he is the master of this place. There is energy and a confidence in the man that is almost palpable.

"No misters in this house; I'm Jack to you, young man." In a rather booming voice, he adds, "Apologies for looking a mess. You boys made such quick time getting here that I've not had time to change into something better than my old gardening gear. Park your bikes here—you can put them in the garage later. First thing's first; come inside for some liquid refreshment. You both look like you need it."

The clatter of their cycle shoes on the terracotta tiles of the central hallway sounds ridiculously loud to Sherlock, and he quickly follows suit when Victor toes his off and leaves them just inside the front door. The two pad barefoot behind the big man down a corridor that leads into a large conservatory.

Jack pulls a bottle of lager from a large container of ice and pops the cap, handing it straight to Victor. "Get this down your neck and you'll start to feel human again."

He's already got the top off the second bottle and is about to pass it to Sherlock, who interrupts, "Could I just have some water? From the tap is fine, not too cold."

"Oh, not a fan of the amber nectar then? Then I'll have this one." Jack takes a swig from the bottle before he disappears off through a door across the conservatory.

Victor has downed half the bottle, before he comes up for air. "You okay?"

"Fine."

"That was some blistering pace you set. Had me worried that you'd get here before me."

"Don't worry. I'm not going to embarrass you."

Before Victor can respond, his dad returns, and Sherlock receives a sweating glass of water, drinking deeply. He is thirsty, and by drinking, he is at least momentarily absolved of having to talk.

"I've cranked up the thermostat in the swimming pool if you two lads want to cool off with a dip."

Victor looks at Sherlock, eyes inquisitive.

Sherlock puts the glass down on a side table. "Actually, sir, I'd rather just have a quick bath and change my clothes. I assume the luggage got here okay?"

"Yes indeed. Causton—he's the butler—collected your gear from the station and put it in your bedroom. He's got the afternoon off, but will be back tonight. So I'll show you the way. Vic can take a dip while you clean up and get settled in."

Sherlock follows Jack through another door from the conservatory; this one leads to a set of stairs, which Jack starts to climb. "I've put you in the corner suite, all mod cons. It's the newer part of the house. Vic and me get to slum it in the old homestead."

The room is big and modern with an en suite. Sherlock thinks it has about as much character as a business hotel, but clearly Jack Trevor is proud of his house and keeps pointing out lots of little facts about how he thinks he has improved it over the years.

"Six bedrooms, now—three in the old wing and three over here; I'm thinking of converting the attic space over the garage into a big playroom."

Confused, Sherlock asks, "I thought you lived alone here. Why would you need more space?"

"Oh, sure, for now I'm on my own. But Vic comes home after graduation, and of course when he gets married, we'll need space for the grandkiddies."

Sherlock wants to point out just how unlikely that is but decides that this is one of those ' _don't'_ –moments, so keeps quiet. Surely, his father knows that the engagement with Chloe is over, that there will be no wedding and no children any time soon, if ever. Is this a case of wishful thinking? Can a proper father know so little about his own son? Sherlock's own father had scarcely any contact with him even before his mother died, so he has no data to judge the Trevors' relationship against.

Victor _has_ made it clear there is no chance of him getting back together with Chloe, hasn't he?

Jack seems to be waiting for Sherlock to say something, who has no idea what possible response he could or should give. _Definitely a '_ don't' _–moment._

"Well, I'm going to go get changed myself into something a little less tatty. When you're ready, just come down; we're likely to be in the library."

oOoOoOoOo

After the bath, Sherlock dresses in jeans, a T-shirt and a loose denim jacket. Unsurprisingly, Jack Trevor has an Antipodean's appetite for heat, and his clothing is casual.

"No dress code," Victor had told Sherlock a few days prior, adding that the underfloor heating in the conservatory is powerful enough to keep the tropical plants in there cosy even in the depths of an East Anglian snowstorm.

Once he's made his way downstairs and into the conservatory, Sherlock can't hear any voices. Looking around the place for a room that might be considered a library, Sherlock is struck by how remarkable the house is for what it says about Jack Trevor's understanding of the English upper class to which he hopes his son will aspire. There is a living room that has pretentions to being a drawing room; the two drop-arm Knole sofas and Hepplewhite chairs are authentic enough antiques, but the man who has spent his money buying them has not realised that the two styles are separated by more than a hundred years of furniture design. They sit uncomfortably under a pair of late Victorian paintings of Scotland wildfowl. A bulky, cast-iron, tile-inset fireplace from the Arts and Crafts Movement dominates a corner. The 18th century Georgian wallpaper is something one would find in a London townhouse, but the inner walls of country houses from that period would be painted, not papered.

Sherlock smirks; Mycroft would be horrified at the clash of styles involved with nearly four hundred years of furniture design being squashed together into an aesthetic nightmare.

To be fair, when Sherlock does find the library it is more consistent in style—one befitting a gentleman's London Club—although he doubts that any club on Piccadilly would dare to put a billiards table in the same space as books.

Jack greets him with a smile. "Vic did some laps in the pool to work out the kinks; he'll be down in a mo; are you hungry? Tea's coming in a couple of minutes with the usual baggage of cake and crumpets but I can get cook to rustle up some sandwiches, too, to tide you boys over until dinner."

"No, thank you."

Jack is smiling; "Yeah, well that's just the final piece of proof that you aren't a rugby player; they never turn down food. I've been feeding up Vic for years, and he's like a bottomless pit."

Sherlock worries that he might have hit another one of those ' _don't_ '–moments; how much has Victor told his father about what has happened with the rugby team? Is it possible that Jack doesn't even know that he's quit?

What should be a casual conversation is becoming a mine field. Sherlock has no scripts for this. It's probably best if he doesn't comment on rugby at all. Or Chloe. Or Victor's flat. Or his studies. Or–––

He realises his anxiety is threatening to hurtle his concentration off track. Jack Trevor is watching him expectantly again; he must scramble to say something!

"Where do…"

"Is that…"

As both he and Jack speak at exactly the same time, Sherlock winces; he often mistimes conversational reciprocity. Taking turns is hard, especially when he has to worry about everything he says.

Jack just laughs. "You first."

Sherlock's gaze lands on the book shelf behind Jack. At just about the big man's ear level sits what appears to be a very old edition of Burke's Peerage. Unlike the rest of the books on the shelves, this one looks well-thumbed. "You have an eclectic collection of books here. Are you interested in first editions?"

Jack snorts. "No, can't say I've had much time or appetite for reading. I went to Jardyce of Bloomsbury six years ago, told him how many feet of bookshelves I wanted filled with things that would suit a gentleman, and this is what arrived."

 _Buying antique books by shelf length. Mycroft would have kittens._ Sherlock reaches up and pulls the Burke's Peerage down and looks at the date, 1883. "This one seems to get some serious attention."

"Ah, well, that's my bible. A who's who of potential customers."

Sherlock puts the book down on the coffee table. "I would have thought the _Burke's Commoners_ would be more useful on that score; the title changed in 1843 to _Burke's Landed Gentry_. Mind you, most of the rural estates mentioned have changed hands or been broken up. Only the modern editions would be useful for marketing purposes."

Jack's bushy eyebrows rise in surprise. "Vic said you were a chemistry student, not land economy. How do you know about rural estates?"

Before Sherlock can answer, the door opens, and Victor enters. He is wearing the purple cardigan over a dress shirt and Sherlock is momentarily struck dumb by how fine he looks in it. Victor had worn it in Cambridge on special occasions, but Sherlock had not seen him pack it this morning. He takes a moment to appreciate the view.

"Wowza, Vic; that's a bright colour. Not your usual taste," Jack comments and it's hard to interpret whether he approves or not.

Victor smiles. "Actually, it is my taste. You've been mistaking Chloe's taste for mine, just like everyone else. Time to shine, Dad."

Jack laughs. "Whatever attracts the ladies, son. I guess a peacock has got to show off some feathers to catch a female's eye these days."

There is a soft knock at the door, and then tea is brought in. After introducing Mister and Missus Causton as the butler and cook, Jack shoos them both out and busies himself with pouring tea. Victor cuts a small piece of what appears to be carrot cake and gives it to Sherlock on a plate, before doing the same for him and his father, only the slices are twice the size.

As he settles into a leather armchair, Jack takes a bite of cake, a swallow of tea and then says, "What I was about to ask you before Vic came in is where do you call home?"

The question confuses Sherlock. "Cambridge… I am a student there." Surely Victor has told him this much?

Jack laughs. "No, I mean, where were you born; where's your family's home?"

"West Sussex."

"Can't say I've heard of any Holmes in West Sussex. What's your father's business?"

"My father ran a pharmaceutical business; he died when I was fifteen. My mother when I was ten. So technically, I am an orphan."

"Oh." Jack looks shocked. "No siblings, aunts or uncles, grandparents, cousins?"

Sherlock thinks the question is odd, but answers anyway. "My grandparents are all deceased, as are their offspring. I have cousins twice and three times removed on both sides in France and Norway whom I have either never met or only when I was a small child. My elder brother is my only _family_ , in the way you mean it."

Victor has been devouring his cake, watching and listening to the conversation. He sees the Burke's Peerage on the table and smiles. Leaning forward, he grabs the book and leafs through the alphabetical listings. He then hands the book to his father, holding it open. "Check the third listing from the top, Dad: _Sherrinford_."

Sherlock rolls his eyes, but Jack doesn't see this because he is avidly reading the entry.

"Bloody hell, Vic! You didn't tell me we'd be entertaining aristocracy!"

Sherlock sniffs. "The title is my brother's. Nothing to do with me."

"According to Steve, AFE has done business with the Parham estate. Sir Nicholas Frobisher says it's one of the finest shooting estates in England."

Sherlock blinks. Nicholas Frobisher he vaguely remembers; the man has often visited the estate for shooting parties but who is Steve and when has Victor discussed Parham with him? For that matter, how does Victor know Frobisher He is utterly confused, suspecting he may be losing the plot of the conversation. Should he remember this Steve? Is this something Victor has talked to him about and he'd tuned out or forgotten?

Jack carefully closes the book and leans back in his chair, clearly re-appraising his guest.

This scrutiny makes Sherlock even more uncomfortable. If possible, Jack Trevor now looks even more intensely curious than before.

"So… as the second son, you're an _honourable_ ," Jack declares.

Sherlock forces out a reserved laugh. "That is a very outdated term, and most people who know me would find it ridiculous when applied to me."

Victor is smiling. "I don't know about that. You're clearly honourable in your integrity; your honesty and loyalty are defining characteristics in my experience."

Sherlock finds he is blushing slightly. It's not the first time he's heard Victor singing his praises to his father, and while flattering, Sherlock isn't quite sure what the purpose of it is. "I meant the title, not the meaning of the word itself."

"Eton?"

"No. Harrow. And I hated it," he adds and then wants to bite his tongue; was saying this acceptable?

"Sherlock is an unusual name; is it a something historical?"

He wonders why this could possibly matter. But, he doesn't want to offend Victor's father. "It is a fact that I am distantly related to William Sherlock , the Dean of St Paul's in 1691. His son, Thomas Sherlock was a bishop, advisor to a Prime Minister, and a vice-chancellor of Cambridge University.*"

Jack picks up the tea pot and gestures towards Sherlock, "Another cup of tea?"

"No, thank you." The tea bags in the pot have stewed long enough that it will be ruinously bitter; Sherlock doesn't want to offend the man, but neither is he going to consume a beverage that he knows from experience will upset further a stomach already churning with stress.

This whole conversation feels like Victor is showing him off to his father, but this bit about the peerage has surprised him. Victor has never made any reference to his family's history before, and Sherlock has not spoken about Parham. So, that fact that Victor knows enough to brag about it makes Sherlock feel strange. It has never mattered before, so is it something Victor thinks is necessary to advertise right now to ensure that Jack Trevor won't dislike Sherlock. Is Victor so certain he will do something untoward that he thinks it necessary to do this sort of damage control before the fact?

Jack is still scrutinising him, and under the man's gaze, Sherlock has to stifle his urge to squirm.

"So, now I know why you've heard of Burkes' books, what A levels did you do?"

Wondering what the hell this has to do with anything, Sherlock snaps; "Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Maths and Music. Why?"

Jack breaks his gaze long enough to butter a crumpet and then slather on some red fruit jam. Before he takes a bite, he gives Sherlock another considered look. "Victor tells me you are reading chemistry; some sort of genius, he says. Planning to take over the family business?"

"No. It was sold soon after he died. I am not interested in that line of work."

Victor had been looking increasingly uncomfortable. "Hey, Dad, just ease up; this isn't a job interview."

Jack throws his head back with a loud guffaw. "Sorry, Sherlock. As Vic will tell you if he hasn't already done so, I can be kind of direct. Chloe's been here a lot, of course, but Vic doesn't bring his friends here very often; in fact, none from university, and only two from his time at Greshams. If I didn't have a hide as thick as a crocodile's, I'd swear he's ashamed of me. I hope you'll forgive a father's curiosity about the company his son is keeping."

Giving a rather strained smile, Sherlock nods. "No problem."

oOoOoOoOo

After tea, Sherlock excuses himself, claiming he needs to work on his bike because the new Shimano 600 derailleur is a bit finicky and in need of adjustment after the ride. In fact, he could do with a time out, and hopes that his absence will allow the Trevors to talk in private.

He spends almost ninety minutes holed up in the garage, wondering what Victor might be saying to his father, hoping that the subject of business school and all that will be raised in his absence. Given the level of discomfort he's feeling, Sherlock just wants this plan of Victor's to be over as soon as possible. He doubts he will be able to last the week without putting his foot in it somehow and upsetting Jack Trevor. Not that the man is the epitome of tact himself, but he seems a bit volatile.

When he thinks enough time has passed, Sherlock sneaks in back upstairs to clean the grease off his hands and change into smarter trousers and a dress shirt. He loiters up in the bedroom for as long as he thinks he can get away with before going back downstairs.

Meeting Causton in the corridor, he is directed to the conservatory for "pre-dinner drinks." There, he finds Victor standing alone beside a potted bougainvillea that is smothered in a riot of harsh fuchsia flowers, and climbing all the way to the glass ceiling.

Sherlock wants to bask for a moment in Victor's radiant smile of greeting, but he knows he should use this precious moment alone to prepare for whatever comes next. "Should I expect a round two of the interrogation? Is he going to ask me about your decision to go to business school?"

Victor shakes his head firmly. "Not yet; I haven't had a chance to mention that. Got to wait for the right time." He is drinking a tall glass of clear liquid on ice. "And, sorry, he can be a little fierce with the questions. Well, at least he hasn't insulted you yet. Your brother didn't waste time getting to that the first, second and third times we met." Victor says this with an apologetic smile.

"Maybe that's because you are being so relentless in your talking me up."

Victor smirks. "It's important he likes you. Are you saying that you haven't been saying anything nice about me to your brother?"

Sherlock wants to sigh, but thinks this is definitely a ' _don't_ '-moment. "My brother disregards my ideas about anyone and anything; you shouldn't take it personally. In fact, the more I tried to convince him of your merits, the more he'd find fault. Who's Steve?"

Victor frowns. "Steve? That's one of Dad's employees. Call him his right-hand man." Victor leans forward to glance towards the foyer. He's how I got a Parham number to telephone back in December because the main residence is unlisted.

"Where's your father?" Sherlock asks, wondering if they can be overheard.

"Getting some fresh lime; he'll be back soon."

"When are you going to talk to him about business school?"

"Hey, just trust me to know when the time is right," Victor insists. "All part of the plan," he adds, just as Jack returns.

Calling across the tiled expanse, Jack greets them, "There you are. Sherlock—can I mix you a G and T?"

"Just tonic for me, please."

Jack raises an eyebrow. "A bit abstemious, but whatever," He pours tonic over a tall glass filled with ice and then adds a slice of lime. "Lime for the limey, that's fitting. Vic taught me a lot about British naval history after he moved on from his pirate phase; I had to talk him out of wanting to join the Royal Navy."

Sherlock takes a moment to appreciate the image this brings to mind; that physique in a naval uniform would be… quite an eyeful. He glances up at Victor, who is looking embarrassed.

Jack continues. "On second thought, maybe I should have agreed. You know the saying; 'all the nice girls love a sailor'. He needs to get back into the dating game. Our boy's a bit out of practice."

Victor nearly chokes on a sliver of ice that has gone down the wrong way. After several coughs and a solicitous thump on the back from Jack, he's regained his breath enough to gasp out, "I'm _fine_. And I don't need any help when it comes to that, Dad. "

Jack continues where he left off. "Now _there's_ something I'm hoping you can help him with, Sherlock. Shame you don't have a sister; do you or your brother know any eligible young women looking for a handsome young man like Victor?"

Sherlock has to take a deep breath. What the hell should he reply to that? It's like a live grenade has just been handed to him, and his mind goes utterly blank for a moment.

Victor groans, "Dad, stop trying to be a bloody matchmaker, will you?!"

"It's been long enough, boy. I don't want you moping about. You need to get back into the game while you're still at uni. Now that you're out of the rugby scene, you can't waste time. A couple of months from now when you graduate, you'll be stuck with the slim pickings out here in the sticks, so best be looking over the sheilas where they are more plentiful. There are May Balls, and all those going-down parties to consider."

Sherlock decides to come to Victor's rescue. "My brother is the _last_ person on earth to ask for advice regarding nubile young women. And, I doubt that Victor is actually in need of such company at the moment; the last six weeks of an undergraduate's term would be better focused on preparing for exams, which is why I can be of no assistance when it comes to introductions. Too busy."

Jack laughs. "Well, I'm sure you're both going to do fine on your exams. No need to bust a gut for a first; a second-class degree is more gentlemanly because no one likes a swot. It's who you know in this business that matters; a degree's just a calling card. So, better take time to have some fun along the way, survey the prospects."

Sherlock is still trying to work out how to respond to this in a way that isn't patronising to a man who clearly never attended a university when the butler enters and announces that dinner is served. _Saved by the bell._

* * *

 **Author's notes** : *William Sherlock is a real person, as is his son Thomas. Both were very highly placed clerics in the Church of England, which allows its priests to marry and have children. The son was quite famous in the 18th century. A familial tie to the Sherrinford viscounts is, however, quite a fabrication on my part.


	31. Chapter 31

**Chapter Thirty One Deduction**

* * *

"It may not be high table, but the cook does her best to keep us well-fed and watered." Jack puts his napkin down, and pushes his chair back a little from the table. "Pass the port, but pour another glass for yourself and Sherlock while you're at it, Vic. I know what you college boys are like. The port's a twenty year old tawny, which might be more to your taste, Sherlock, than what Causton served with the beef."

Sherlock puts a hand across the top of his glass and gives a tiny shake of his head. The third time the butler had offered to fill his glass with a 1988 Chateau Palmer, he'd finally got the message that Sherlock wasn't interested, but Jack is the kind of host that seems to take a bit of offence if a glass is not at least half full. A Caesar salad had been the off-putting starter. Sherlock couldn't hide his dislike by picking at plain salad leaves, since every morsel on the plate had been doused in copious amounts of a very-anchovy rich version of its classical sauce. This had been followed by massive steaks to which Victor and his father had begun to scarf down with gusto, leaving Sherlock staring at the oozing and bloody enemy on his plate with disdain bordering on disbelief. Steak is fine, and Sherlock has sometimes ordered filet mignon when dining out with Mycroft, but this is something else; at one point, Jack had announced; "Nothing like a good flat iron, is there! All the fancier cuts have so little actual meat." Sherlock assumes that the term refers to the cut and not the pan used to cook it. It certainly doesn't sound like something a more upmarket restaurant would serve, judging by the amount of connective tissue. At least the roast potatoes had been flawless, which he had made sure to point out, since Jack seemed to have been fishing for compliments on the food at every turn.

Dessert had been a Pavlova with a peach and raspberry centre—not a surprising choice since the combination contains not one but two Australian staples. Jack had told the story of Dame Nellie Melba as if such folklore was a sacred text. The meringue was adequate—not that a palatable dessert could have changed the fact that the evening has been excruciating for Sherlock, but he's tried to conform to the role that he's been thrust into. In order to manage it, he knew he'd have to keep a clear head, one unmuddled by alcohol.

Jack Trevor sits at the end of the long table, with Victor on his right and Sherlock on his left. After an initial blast of full-on Aussie, he had toned things down a bit as the evening has progressed. As the claret went down his throat, he'd mellowed, even relaxed a bit. By the time the port came around, Causton was sent home for the evening, accompanied by his wife, the cook. The two live in a small cottage at the end of a small avenue behind Colton Grange's garages.

The post-prandial conversation is circling around the topic of agriculture, first raised by Jack, who is arguing that the UK supermarkets are putting the squeeze on suppliers these days, and a lot of the smaller businesses are going out of business. He is worried about the market for agricultural machinery: "The biggest farms are now owned by people who know more about supply chain management than agriculture. If they have a big enough acreage, they want to deal with the equipment manufacturers direct, rather than intermediaries like AFE. Or worse still, they outsource the heavy machinery work to agencies; the biggest buyers of harvesters and the high margin equipment are now the services companies that come into a farm a couple of times a year and do all the work on a contract."

He sighs. "In the good old days, when I first set up the company, it wasn't about the machinery. It was about the people you knew. Establish a relationship with an estate manager and then the orders would follow. Now, all they care about is outsourcing the work to some faceless contracting company, who don't actually know anything about the local conditions. Customer loyalty is a thing of the past."

Jack sighs as he tops up his own port glass. "It's going to be tough for you, Vic, and don't I know it. When you get into harness here, you're going to realise how important those contacts of yours with the estates' families are for getting repeat business. I know I harp on about it, but if you want to sell equipment, you need to have a relationship with these people. I'm glad you're finally taking your first steps into the kind of networking we need," he says, giving Victor a pointed glance with a subtle nod towards Sherlock. "Maybe Chloe's skills did rub off on you."

Victor shakes his head. "It's less about the hardware these days, than it is about the crops themselves. If you can make wheat resistant to disease and drought, then demand for sprayers and irrigation kit is going to drop. That's something that those contractors haven't figured out, and a lot of farmers don't want to think about yet, but it's coming."

Jack waves a hand in dismissal. "GM crops? No supermarket in the UK will touch them."

Victor shoots a glance across the table at Sherlock. "I could do with some help here. Could you explain why genetic engineering is the future of increasing productivity and output on a worldwide basis?"

Put on the spot like this, Sherlock tries to find an example to which Jack might relate. "This recent debate fails to understand the historical context. Genetic modification happens all the time; throughout history, farmers have hybridised certain varieties and species to deal with pests. That wine you are drinking is a good example. When Bordeaux's vines were wiped out by Phylloxera bugs, the epidemic went on to devastate the world-wide wine industry, including the port vineyards."

He nods towards the decanter in front of Jack. "Only one tiny parcel of land in the whole of the port region escaped, because there is no chemical pesticide that worked against the bugs or the secondary fungal infections that killed the vines. It was only by grafting European grape varieties onto North American vine roots or creating hybrids between the American and European grape varieties that wine makers could resist the bugs. The mass replanting of grafted vines was a form of genetic engineering, and happened as early as the nineteenth century. Modern technology just makes that process faster and more precise."

Jack's reply is sceptical. "That's as maybe, Sherlock, but all these organic health nuts out there have kicked up such a fuss about 'Frankenstein food' that no supermarket will buy anything from a farmer who uses it. And the eco freaks out there are saying it will be the end of our native plants if so much as an acre of experimental crops is planted."

Victor steps in. "There are always luddites, Dad. As soon as we are able to sequence the genome of all of these plants, it will be possible to alter their protein formations to eliminate their susceptibility to diseases. That's a step forward—not just for plants; the same can be done for animals and people, too, to cure and prevent diseases. Sherlock's work in the lab focuses on this protein formation stuff; he's already got ideas for his final year project that is going to use the human genome. It's a whole new world out there. Maybe in the future we can fix cancer by editing out the mutations that cause the disease; a lot of future medicine will be about genetic modification."

Jack gives a rueful laugh. "All over my head, I'm afraid. I'm an engineer; fancy name for a grease monkey, a mechanic."

Sherlock tries again. "Your engineering skills didn't start in agriculture; you were first a miner in Australia. You've had to change sectors and learn a whole new inventory of technology in the farming world. In a way, this is no different. There will be a time when genetic engineers will be the most important engineers, able to apply their gene editing knowledge and skills to different sectors, so it is wise to keep abreast of these changes. As a business man, you must know how important anticipating trends can be."

Sherlock looks pointedly across the table at Victor. Here is the opportunity he's been waiting for, to tell his father about his ambitions to go to business school. Sherlock's done what he can to help; now it's up to Victor.

Instead, Victor just smiles and unleashes another round of praise. "What did I tell you? Sherlock's on the ball, Dad. He uses his skills of observation and deduction to see things that other people don't. That's why the most important Chemistry professor at Cambridge is his director of studies—the only undergraduate student he's willing to take. He told me that Sherlock sees the possibilities that other people just miss."

Sherlock is confused, trying to work out what Victor's strategy is. Talking about him like this is not going to convince Jack Trevor of the wisdom of Victor going to business school.

Jack laughs. "Yes, Vic; I get he's smart. But, what you were saying to me earlier, that he's got this technique of deduction that can tell him what people are really thinking rather than what they are saying, well, that's a bit of a beat up, isn't it? If he could teach you that, then maybe you'd be able to work out a bonzer marketing strategy for Steve. But, with respect, Sherlock, I think Vic is exaggerating. Nobody can get to the heart of a man just by looking at them."

"If not the heart, then a great many other things," Sherlock says, fixing his gaze on Victor in order to prompt him into steering the conversation somewhere more useful.

Jack takes another swallow of port, and then his eyes take on a mischievous glint. "Come now, I'm an excellent subject. What can you deduce from me?"

Victor is leaning back in his chair, taking a sip of port. He seems to be leaving Sherlock to his own devices, which is as disappointing as it is dangerous.

After the silence becomes heavy, Sherlock replies modestly; "I fear it is not very much. It's probably best to start with the fact that you have become worried recently about some form of physical attack, either on your person or Colton Grange."

The laugh fades from Jack's lips, and he stares at Sherlock in great surprise. "That's true enough. Since Christmas, there've been some travellers about causing trouble. The Norwich City Council broke up a gypsy encampment at the village of Costessey. That's five miles away from here, and it wasn't pretty, I can tell you. A couple of homes in the area have been burgled, so I'm on my guard. But how did you know?"

"You have recently installed CCTV; the cameras are new, and the installers did not re-touch the paint where they had drilled, pointing to a rush job. The external paintwork of the house is normally done every year in late March, if I am not mistaken, so the installation must have happened after it."

"Why, yes, as soon as the days start to get longer, we always get it repainted. That's clever. But why do you think I am so worried about it?"

"There is a fresh scent of gun oil in the garage, and I noticed the gun cabinet locks had been recently replaced."

"Anything else?" Jack asks, smiling a little uncertainly.

"About you? Well, you were a boxer in your youth in Australia."

"Right again. How did you know it? Is my nose knocked a little out of the straight?"

Victor smirks. "And here I was thinking you got that in a rugby match, like mine."

Sherlock knows all too well that rugby isn't the only way to break a nose. "Precisely! It can be the result of many things, even an assault. In your case, the clue is your _ears_. They have a peculiar flattening and thickening which marks the boxing man."

Jack is now shaking his head in amazement. "It's true; I did win quite a few bouts in my youth. You would have thought it might have knocked some sense into my head. I did some pretty dumb things when I was young, but then I left home too young to know any better."

"You had a varied mining career, at a strip mine to begin with, before going underground."

"How the devil can you know that?"

"Your calluses. Dump trucks used in strip mines back in the sixties and seventies used manual transmissions. Underground mines, probably coal in south eastern Australia, was more about rail-based delivery systems, so you were not driving by then but managing rail machinery. The callus on the webbing between the thumb and index finger of your left hand is common amongst heavy vehicle drivers. Your lower back and shoulder musculature, however, shows that you worked with power tools on equipment higher up, which would apply for rail-based wagons."

Jack laughs again. "It's true! All true. I worked at a bauxite mine in Weipa up in Queensland before going south to the coal mines of Wollongong." He looks to his right at Victor. "What have you been telling him about me?"

Victor swallows a sip of his port before shaking his head. "Don't look at me. You never talk about what you got up to before I was born, apart from being in mining. This is the first I have heard of bauxite."

Jack's gaze becomes a bit fierce when it returns to Sherlock. "What else? Is there more?"

"You have been in New Zealand."

Shocked, Jack blurts out: "Yes, by God, I did travel there briefly, after leaving Wollongong and before coming to Britain." He raises his eyebrows in an unspoken question.

"The tattoo at your left elbow is a Maori design, not known in the UK ink parlours."

"How do you know about that?"

"I am curious, Mister Trevor. Tattoos are a means of communicating that briefly fascinated me when I was at school. My chemistry teacher had one."

Victor is intrigued. "I didn't know that, Dad. When did you go? What was New Zealand like?"

Jack draws a slightly shaky breath. He looks worried, now. "I went to Rotorua just the once, for a week. On a whim, I got this as a souvenir. But you could not know about the tattoo unless Victor had told you."

Sherlock shakes his head at the same time as Victor does. "I saw it when you greeted us at the door with your sleeves rolled up. You were surprised by our early arrival, so had not changed. I think that you tend to hide its existence from most people, just in case you should ever meet a Maori who would understand the significance of what you have done to it afterwards."

Now, Jacks expression changes from disconcerted to anxious and evasive. "I don't know what you mean."

"Your tattoo is the work of a _tohunga ta moko_. They use traditional methods, incising the skin with chisels made from albatross bone. They use inks that contain gunpowder which turns it a particular shade of blue that cannot be matched by a modern tattoo artist using needles and Indian ink. But, you appear to have stopped the master from completing it, because he would not have left the centre open. The Maori believe their tattoos are almost holy, inviolable, and yet subsequent to its creation, you had two initials added into the design—by a needle with modern inks. Sometime later, you had them removed; the scar tissue is still evident, as are the traces of the initials."

Jack's jaw has dropped open during this last deduction, and when Sherlock is done, he snaps it shut for a moment before spitting out, "You are the very devil himself. "

Victor appears shocked by his father's reaction. "I've always known about the tattoo, but just assumed it was Australian. What does he mean? What initials were there and why would you remove them?"

When Jack does not answer, Sherlock decides to fill in the gaps. "The initials were _J.P._ I assume this was someone you were intimately associated with but with whom you afterwards were eager to forget entirely."

Jack stands up, fixes his wide blue eyes on Sherlock with a strange, wild stare and then suddenly slumps forward, knocking his port glass over, collapsing in a faint.

Victor is on his feet and beside his father almost instantly and Sherlock not soon after. The two of them manage to lift the big man away from the table and lay him out on the floor. Sherlock loosens his collar; starting to get up from jack's side, Victor is reaching in his back pocket for his phone, to call an ambulance.

"Wait." Sherlock can see Jack's eyelids have cracked open and he's blinking slowly. "He's coming around."

Jack gives a gasp and then drags himself up to a sitting position. His eyes are unfocused at first, but he does manage to gasp out: "Wet me that napkin, Vic and let me mop my face. I'll feel better in a moment."

Victor does as he is told, but then crouches down to look in his father's eyes. "I'm going to call an ambulance."

"No! There's no need. I'm sorry. I hope I haven't frightened you. Strong as I look, I have a heart condition, diagnosed a month ago. Help me up into the chair. I'll be fine."

Victor takes one arm of the big man and Sherlock the other. Together, they are able to lift him into the dining chair.

"Thank you, boys. I'll be alright, don't fuss Victor."

"Just when were you going to tell me?"

"Well, I didn't want to spring it on you on your first night home, did I? Then Sherlock comes out with those deductions, and they just knocked me sideways. I don't know how you manage this, but it seems to me all the detectives in the world could learn something from you. That's a singular skill of yours, and you should make it your career. Chemists are common; someone with your eye is a rarity indeed."

This is the first time that anyone has suggested that Sherlock's deductive skills are anything but a nuisance. He cannot help but wonder if this praise is offered in some way to distract their attention from how Jack had reacted.

"But Dad–– what's wrong with you?" Victor asks, leaning a palm on the dining table to study Jack's expression as though the answer could be read there. "What sort of a heart condition?"

Jack waves a dismissive hand. "Some valve or other is narrowed. They say it's getting close to the limit where they'd recommend surgery."

He then looks at Sherlock with a severe expression. "Those initials. It is as you said, but we won't talk further about it. Of all ghosts, the ghosts of our old lovers are the worst."

oOoOoOoOo

When his old clock on the bedside table clicks over to 02.30, Victor admits defeat. He is unable to sleep. Before tonight, he had been worried about what his father would say about business school. When it came to insomnia-inducing worries he's had of late, his father's health would not have even made it on the list. After the dining table drama, however, everything has changed. It's _seismic_ , as if an earthquake has shaken the very foundations of Victor's world.

Even in the dark, he knows his bedroom and its contents with the certainty of someone who has spent all of his childhood, all of his school and university holidays in this one place. Yet, tonight there is no comfort to be had by his familiarity with it. These four walls bear witness to his growth; he's not one of those teenagers who'd clung to the reminders of his childhood. When he was fifteen, he'd put all of his toys in a box and got Causton to store them in the loft space above the garages. When he went to university, he'd boxed up the rest of his boyhood souvenirs: the school rugby trophies, the adventure books, the model ships he'd built when he'd been bored in the long summer vacs. Last summer, the nautical themed wall paper had been stripped off, and the re-plastered walls painted a neutral magnolia. He'd gone into Norwich and bought himself two new duvet sets: plain blues, in mix and match shades. The room now has an air of impermanence about it, as if is no longer certain of its life-long occupant.

Chloe had hated the make-over of his room. The guest room that his father had put her in "for propriety's sake" was feminine and frilly, painted the inevitable pink, and had been that way since their engagement had been announced two years ago. Perhaps he should tell his dad to get the room re-decorated now in something more neutral.

The neutral décor of Victor's bedroom rather matches his mood of uncertainty and ambivalence. What was supposed to be a straight-forward but challenging exercise in telling his father that his ambitions are heading in directions that differ from the path set out long ago has turned into something of a nightmare. What if his father's heart condition means that he cannot take the stress of learning that his ambitions for his son are all a mirage?

Victor is still stunned by what had happened at the table. He'd always thought of his father as fit and healthy, a big man who is larger than life and full of vitality. The idea that all of that could be struck down by a dodgy heart is such a shock. And what had ever possessed Sherlock to keep going with those deductions? Surely he could have seen the effect they were having on Jack? How could he have been so insensitive, jeopardising all the hard work that Victor had put into building up his dad's appreciation of Sherlock's brilliance?

Suddenly, everything has changed. Instead of Victor assuming that he has time over the next year to convince his dad gradually about business school, about Sherlock as a business partner and then eventually his life partner, the timetable has shrunk. What if Dad retires soon due to ill health, thinking that he can pass on his business? That would ruin everything. If he has to undergo surgery, will he assume that Victor will step in and run the business during his recovery? That could end his plans to spend the summer in Cambridge with Sherlock.

Victor feels ashamed of these thoughts. His dad is unwell, and here he is being the spoiled brat and worrying mostly about how it affects his plans.

Victor gets up, opens the curtains and looks out into the dark night. Across the fields at the back, there are no lights shining. The nearest village in that direction is almost three miles away. When he was a child, he'd felt very isolated by that view. His father had done so much to encourage him to make friends, going to the trouble of chatting up almost every family in a ten mile radius with boys his age in the hope of finding him playmates. His father's networking isn't always in pursuit of business; he'd had good motives, too. Victor has never really missed his mother; how could he, when he doesn't know what a mother would bring to the family? At most, he has been envious of those kids around him with two parents, but his father has been a supportive and loving parent, making so much of an effort to ensure Victor was happy.

And now he's going to destroy those dreams— to wreck the image his father has of him completely in so many ways.

Suddenly, the freedom he's been longing for feels less important. He doesn't want to upset his Dad, doesn't want to turn his back to someone after all he's done for the two of them. If this news about his heart means that he wants Victor to return to Colton and run the company, then he will have to turn down the business school admission. He can't abandon his father in his time of need; it would be unbearably selfish and cruel. He'll have to leave Cambridge, and Sherlock will be on his own for his last year of undergraduate study.

Could their relationship withstand him being stuck here in Colton, and Sherlock in Cambridge? Their intimacy has been growing, but it's all so new. So much of their relationship is based on being _together_. Victor has trouble thinking of Sherlock as being able to deal well with separation. Even if they were able to see each other on the weekends, they could not be with each other _that way_ —not in his father's house. Sherlock had reacted so badly to the idea of concealing their relationship for a full year; what would happen if Victor needed to extend that period?

These thoughts keep going round and round in his head. He knows he has no answers, but that is no comfort. The whole "strategic plan" as he and Sherlock had called it is now in jeopardy.

As long as his dad is alive, and if Victor has to be based in Colton, there seems to be no possibility having the kind of relationship with Sherlock that they have now. All of their plans have been based on being able to live together, to be there for each other.

In a way, Victor suddenly realises that it is so much easier with a girl. If Sherlock had been a girl, he could ask her to marry him, they could get engaged and the world would know that they were together. A formal engagement provides a sense of security, enough so that waiting for something is less worrying for both parties. His father would certainly have approved; being allied to the family of a Viscount topped anything the Seamans would have offered in terms of a pedigree.

But, the way things are, any placeholder promise made would just be known to the two of them. " _Pipe dreams",_ his father would say; whims worth less than the smoke released when they go up in flames. Neither he nor Sherlock can ever have anything like that security of a public commitment to one another, not as long as Victor's Dad doesn't know about the two of them.

The fact that Victor's choice is a male will be very, very hard for Jack to accept. It's not just the bigotry; it also means the end of his dad's dream of grandchildren and a daughter-in-law to become "the woman of the house." Victor supposes that his dad must have missed that for the past twenty years, and been looking forward to being looked after again, especially if he thinks his life is being shortened by heart disease. Victor shares Sherlock's frustration about the deception, but he also knows his Dad better than anyone. Too much honesty at the wrong time could not only blow their plans out of the water, but perhaps push his dad into a heart attack if he's truly in bad enough shape to need surgery. Stress kills, and even just Sherlock's deductions tonight had made him nearly pass out!

Victor's trying to keep a level head about this, but it is hard not to be disappointed and shocked. And Sherlock is going to be devastated by it, which scares him. As soon as he thinks it, he is ashamed that, once again, he is thinking of himself first, Sherlock second and his dad last.

Heart surgery sounds complicated, and risky. What if he _dies_?

As tough as that would be, it would mean a rather different future. Victor could sell the company and Colton Grange, using the proceeds to back the start-up business with Sherlock. He'd be free to move wherever he wanted, and live whatever lifestyle he and Sherlock wanted, without worrying about his father's disapproval and dismay. Jack wouldn't be hurt by it all, because being gone, he wouldn't know. There is something to be said for waiting to discuss anything, even the business school acceptance, until after surgery.

 _Stop this._ He closes the curtains and sits down heavily on the bed again. It's as if he's buried his father already, and he is in danger of wishing it were so. He tells himself that lots of people in their sixties have heart surgery and recover to live normal and productive lives. His father has always said he wouldn't retire until Victor was married and had a family.

Given that isn't going ever going to happen with Sherlock, how will his father take the news? Will he feel abandoned? Forced to work until he drops dead from exhaustion?

As he watches the clock numbers changing, Victor becomes more and more depressed because he is stuck— _utterly_ stuck—and has no idea what the best course of action is.

oOoOoOoOo

On the other side of the house, Sherlock is awake, too.

He hasn't even attempted to sleep. Sitting in an arm chair by the window, overlooking the drive to the garages, he watches the security lights coming on every so often, throwing the occasional passing cat or once a fox into sharp relief. Why had Jack Trevor been so spooked by having the security measures drawn to Victor's attention?

The fainting spell had been so unexpected that he is still left a bit stunned. Jack Trevor had looked to be the picture of robust rude health when he'd greeted them on the doorstep. Was his reaction to Sherlock's deductions so strange because he was about to suffer a heart attack? Not for the first time in his life, Sherlock wishes he knew more about medical things. Cardiac disease sounds serious, and despite Jack wanting to downplay things, such news will invariably change his and Victor's plans.

They might not have as much time as Victor had thought. The sooner Jack Trevor is told the truth about their plans, the more time he will have to make alternate arrangements for the future of his company. With the Caustons living on-site, Victor's father will not be alone after his surgery, and the man has more than enough money to hire whatever in-home nursing care he needs. That sort of planning needs to be done now, while he is awaiting surgery. If Victor doesn't tell the truth, then Jack might make assumptions about his availability in the short term, or even decide to hand over the reins of his farm machinery business early.

It occurs to Sherlock that perhaps Jack Trevor has already made such plans, and maybe he had meant to discuss them during this very stay of his and Victor's, along with delivering the news of his heart valve problem. This is all the more reason that Victor _has_ to come clean and tell his father that he is going to go to business school next year and that he doesn't want to take over the family business. If he delays, Jack might only get worse, and that will make it even harder for him to accept that his son wants to build his own future. Their relationship seems to be reasonable, although Sherlock has to admit that he has no idea of what a good father-son relationship should be. Even so, surely someone who is being faced with their own mortality would want to know that their only child is happy in a relationship that is strong enough on which to build a future? Could the man be really so bigoted as Victor fears? Now that he's met Sherlock, surely it isn't impossible for him to see that the two of them are good for each other? He hadn't made such a mess of tonight that Jack might now hate him, had he? It's so difficult to tell. Deceiving the man any longer about _everything_ —business school, the start-up biotech company, and Victor's real relationship with him—is no longer sensible. The man's illness means that Victor is going to have to re-think his whole approach. Surely Victor has already come to this obvious conclusion?

The security light clicks on again, making Sherlock sigh. He wonders whether anyone in the household ever bothers to look at the security camera footage, or whether Jack Trevor is one of those people who think that the mere presence of a camera is a sufficient deterrent. This sends his thoughts off on a tangent. Why would someone like Jack Trevor be afraid of gypsies or travellers? They are not known to be violent communities; rumours of petty theft following in their wake are almost always exaggerated hearsay, and based on ethnic stereotyping. The fact that the man has been cleaning his shotguns seems an out-of-proportion response. Only last summer a Norfolk farmer had fired on two burglars, killing one of them, and had just been convicted of murder, rather than manslaughter*. Surely, that should have been sufficient deterrent to the idea of taking the law into one's own hands? Could Jack's talk of gypsies have just been an attempt to draw attention away from what he really worries about?

There is something deeply unsettling about the man's reaction to Sherlock's deductions; he is clearly hiding something significant, and Sherlock can't wonder if there could possibly be a connection to the security issue. No former lover's initials would explain the peculiar tattoo, which, by his own admission, had been originally inked when he was already married to Victor's mother. He knows that Victor's mother's name was Gloria Spencer. To what did the J and the P refer? More importantly: why is it so important to keep the meaning secret from Victor?

He is still puzzling over the evening's events and their significance as the sun comes up over the Norfolk fields to the east of the house.

oOoOoOoOo

The next morning, Jack Trevor is cordial enough towards Sherlock at the breakfast table, and shrugs off Victor's enquiry about how he is feeling. Waving a hand in dismissal, his father just laughs, "Now don't you be trying to mollycoddle me, son. I'm fine; my doctor's keeping an eye on me and you're not to worry."

After loading his plate with scrambled eggs, Jack asks Victor about his plans for the day.

"I thought we'd walk into the village; I'd like to show Sherlock around, maybe pop into the pub for a pint."

This is the first Sherlock has heard of this, and it feels… odd that Victor seems to be setting an agenda without consulting him about it first.

Jack pauses his fork midway between his plate and his mouth. "Will you be back for lunch? I'll tell the cook."

"Yeah, it shouldn't take long."

Sherlock says little during the breakfast, because Jack spends most of it updating Victor on the local gossip, about who did what to whom, why and when. Because he has no idea who these people are, he tunes the whole discussion out. It's a relief when Victor places his napkin on the table and stands up. Sherlock nearly knocks down his chair as he quickly follows suit.

As they head out on a footpath across the field, Sherlock asks, "Why do we have to go to the village? We have things we need to discuss with him."

"First, you and I need to talk, and that can't happen indoors where he might hear something."

Sherlock is puzzled by Victor's desire for yet more secrecy. This sounds like Victor wants to make their plans even more complex. He knows from experience that when someone says they 'need to talk', it's never about anything good. To forestall that moment, he decides to take the initiative. "I spent last night thinking about timing," Sherlock says, shoving his hands into his coat pockets. In his haste to leave Colton Grange, he'd forgotten his gloves "Because of your father's illness, I think we need to tell the truth now. The _whole_ truth."

Victor stops, turns around and glares at Sherlock. "Well, I didn't sleep either. While I was worrying about him, I realised that we have to do the exact opposite—to delay telling him about business school and our summer plans at _least_ until after the surgery, whenever that is. Only when we know what's happening with him can we even consider telling him about what we want to do next year, and the fact that you are more to me than a friend."

"Why?" Sherlock is momentarily stunned. How could they have come to such opposite conclusions?

"You saw what happened yesterday—he's clearly not in any state for surprises! He may be fine after he gets his heart surgery, in which case, we can go ahead with the plan. In that case, it's just a delay and it won't change anything."

"And if he isn't _fine_ , what then?"

Victor stops walking and looks at him. "That depends on what the outcome is. It must be serious surgery we're talking about. He may take quite a while to get back onto his feet, and he'll want me to be with him here. I need to be here."

"He has Causton and his wife to look after him. He can hire medical professionals if he needs nursing care. He can get whatever help he needs to recover. Why would he need you?"

Victor gives him a funny sort of smile. Sherlock has never found it easy to interpret facial expressions, but he suspects this one is mostly of incredulous. It looks like Victor hasn't understood his words, but why wouldn't he? He's only pointing out a very logical solution to a practical problem.

"He's my _dad_!"

Sherlock frowns. "You're not a nurse."

"What if it was Mycroft? Wouldn't you want to be there? Even if you don't usually get along with him, he's family. I just know Dad will want me here. This surgery is going to be a big thing for him. He's not been in hospital ever in my lifetime, and he's always been fit, hardly ever even has a cold. If the operation means he's too unwell to get back to work, then he'll need me to stay the summer at least to keep the business going."

Sherlock is utterly confused. "The company has staff. Why would you—someone who has no training or interest in carrying on this role—be the right person to provide managerial cover? Surely this is a time for him to test a potential successor?"

"Like that's going to happen. He thinks I exist to take over his company when he wants to retire."

"But that's exactly why we're here! You told me that you've resented that assumption for years. All the more reason to tell him now. Lying to him is just wrong."

Victor shakes his head. "You don't get it, do you? I _love_ my dad, and all of this—especially you and me— is going to break his heart. I want that to be a figure of speech rather than it actually killing him. If he's so stressed that you being such a berk about that tattoo was enough to make him pass out, then he's hardly up for the fact that we've moved in together and are sharing a bedroom. So we wait. It's the decent thing to do."

Victor's words sound like an order, not a negotiation, and the almost casual way that he has just called Sherlock a berk really _stings._ It hadn't been his idea to do those deductions, but Victor had set him up as if he was a circus act.

As if that's not enough, the finality of his tone irks Sherlock so much that his self-restraint breaks. Angrily, he snaps, "I don't get a say in this decision? Why didn't you talk to me before making up your mind? It's like my views don't count."

Victor takes him by the shoulders and looks him in the eyes. "Of course, you count. It's just you're always so, I don't know, so _logical_ about stuff. People usually aren't, and Dad sure as hell isn't, not about this kind of stuff. He's got his flaws, God knows. But he _loves_ me, and I love him. He's all I had when growing up, and I'm all he's got now that he's getting old. I have to be here for him, at least in the short term. I don't want to hurt him when he's not well. So we _have_ to wait."

"The longer we go on deceiving him, the harder it will be to tell the truth, because we will have to _lie_ , and he will not forgive you for that when we do tell him."

"It's not a criminal offense to protect someone from the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We just avoid the topic, until after the surgery, and we don't have to tell him how long we've been together. Actually, no, it's not _we._ It's got to be _me_ who tells him. After last night, he's clearly a bit spooked by you. Before breakfast this morning, he said he's not sure what you know and what you don't know about him. Last night was quite a performance, and it's made him wary. I'm going to have to settle him down a bit."

Sherlock hastens his steps towards the village, not wanting to look at Victor. There are so many things about his words that bother him, make him feel unsure of where he stands. For him, Victor comes first, and whatever remaining loyalty he has towards Mycroft takes a distant second in comparison. He'd made that abundantly clear to both Mycroft and Victor when his brother had visited. He doesn't understand why Victor seems to be implying that Sherlock had done something wrong in the conversation last night and why it no longer feels like they are on the same side.

"Wait up," Victor says and jogs a few steps to catch up with him.

Sherlock glances at him, then fixes his gaze on the dirt path through the broken wheat stubble. "Why are you annoyed with me for mentioning the tattoo? You do realise he is lying to you about what it means."

Victor rolls his eyes. "Frankly, in the great scheme of all this shit happening right now, a bit of old ink seems pretty insignificant. Why were you so intent on it? What were you trying to prove?"

"After you decided to show me off for my supposed deductive abilities, what else was I supposed to do than deliver? I was just trying to do what I thought you wanted me to do."

"So you agree? That we should sit on all this until he's better?" Victor presses.

Sherlock stops and looks at him. Victor's expression is laden with such urgency and worry that there is only one safe option here: to give in. "If that's the only option you're willing to consider. He's kept secrets from you, too," Sherlock insists.

Finally, the lines etched on Victor's forehead straighten and he laughs a bit, then envelops Sherlock in an embrace, burying his face in his curls. For a moment, Sherlock wants to resist, but he's been missing this so much. He hadn't even realised how much he's needed the reassurance that the two of them are still together. He relents and returns the embrace, wrapping his arms around Victor's waist and pressing his cheek into Victor's shoulder.

"Let it go, Sherlock. We're keeping _this_ secret from him, and it's far more important." After a quick glance to ensure that no one else is walking on the quiet path lined by thick bushes, Victor tips Sherlock's chin up and kisses him.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

Those fans of ACD canon will recognise the debt that this chapter owes to The Gloria Scott. Indeed, some of the dialogue over the dining table is a direct lift from the original text, others barely modified to bring it into the 21st century. **The case of Tony Martin, a Norfolk farmer convicted of murder is real. The burglary occurred in August 2000 and Martin was convicted in January. The case made headlines for months.


	32. Chapter 32

**Chapter 32 Surprise!**

* * *

 **Trigger Warning: extreme homophobia! And a coming out that goes all wrong.**

* * *

The loop starts southwest of Cambridge, at the intersection of the A603 with the B1046: a twenty five kilometre cross country run on smallish but well-paved roads on the flat. Southwest through Wimpole, turn right onto the A1198, the Ermine Way, which is a former Roman road from _Londinium_ through _Lindum Colonia_ and then onto _Eboracum_. It's still straight as a die, from Bishopsgate all the way to York. If Sherlock had been able to convince him to cycle down for Victor's birthday celebration back in February, this road south is the way they would have gone. For their circuit, however, they have to go north on the Ermine Way before turning right onto the VB1046 through Comberton and Barton and then back to the A603. All being well, the circuit time trial should take them somewhere between forty-four and fifty minutes to complete. Not exactly Tour de France speeds, but they are getting faster every time they do it.

The weather in early May is certainly kinder than it was in mid-February, and Sherlock has made good time getting here from the centre of Cambridge, so he stops and waits beside the road at the junction. He can see Victor is about four hundred meters behind and closing fast, so he doesn't dismount.

The fifteen minutes it takes them to get here acts as something of an airlock. Behind them is the world of the last gasp of the third university term: a time when essays, projects, lectures, and tutorials are over and the student world enters the _reading weeks,_ in preparation for exams. No classes might mean every bar and dance club in town should be heaving, but the reverse is true. Exams scare even procrastinators and the slothful to put on a show of studying. Students are absent from anywhere other than the libraries or their rooms.

Fortunately for both Sherlock and Victor, the flat offers a private refuge. Since Easter, they have settled around a new routine: eat, sleep, study, with just a bit of each day set aside for what Victor calls "time off for good behaviour"—generally consisting of physical activity. During daylight hours, that involves cycling; at night, the exercise happens in the bedroom.

At the end of this month, Victor will sit his Part II exam in the Land Economy Tripos, while Sherlock will be sitting his Part II in the Natural Sciences Tripos, focusing on Chemistry. What normally would have taken students two years, the Parts I A and B exams, he'd taken together last year. Next year, he will study for the Part III, which is only offered in the sciences, and it should end with him getting not only the BA but also an MSci. It's his opportunity to catch up with Victor, while he does the MBA.

Both know there is a lot of their future riding on the results of these exams, but they have made a pact not to talk about it. If they did, it would crack open the abyss that relates to Jack Trevor and what his illness might mean to their plans.

When they'd returned from Colton Grange, Victor had opened the front door of the flat, dropped the cases, collected the bikes from the roof rack of the Range Rover driven by Causton, then hastily said his goodbye and thank you to the family butler. Their journey from Colton had not taken long, but with Victor in the front passenger seat and Sherlock sitting behind, it didn't make sense to talk, and they could hardly do so with an interested party driving. So, the deception that had troubled Sherlock throughout their one-week stay at Colton carried on in the car. No one observing their behaviour would have assumed that they were anything other than two friends.

Sherlock had _hated_ it. The whole charade had rasped against his sense of what is right and wrong, chiselling out pieces of him in the process. Denied physical contact or even a shared look that might be misinterpreted, he'd retreated further and further into silence. He didn't want Victor to be able to blame him for any more "performances," as he'd called the deduction trail that had led to his father's collapse. The sting of that throw-away epithet of _berk_ had dug a hole in Sherlock's sense of who and what he is; like an open wound, it had festered for the rest of the week. Through it all, Victor seemed a million miles away, almost oblivious to the turmoil going on in Sherlock's mind.

Thankfully, that distance was bridged the moment the door to the Saxon Street flat shut firmly behind them. Alone at last, Victor had pulled Sherlock into a tight hug and said quietly, "I'm sorry. I know that was utterly _awful_ for you. It was for me, too, honestly. And I just want to put it all behind us. Here's the deal: we're not going to talk or even think about my father, his surgery, whatever the hell might or might not happen. That topic is off-limits from now, until the day he goes into hospital. I want to live this time remaining as an undergraduate the way I want our life to be: together, without fear, just you and me. It will be our little bubble. Screw the future. Forget all about it; I want you _now."_

That declaration had led them straight up the stairs and into bed.

Since then, whenever Victor senses Sherlock's thoughts beginning to drift in the direction of anxiety, those arms encircle him. Sometimes it's accompanied by a whisper, "We're safe. We're together and that's all that counts. Forget the future."

There've been times when Sherlock can see the same dark clouds hovering over Victor, and he makes an effort to respond in kind—to distract, to amuse, to deflect. His skills do not rival Victor's in such matters, but he tries his best.

This is one of those occasions. The weekly time trial cycling on a Sunday afternoon is their chance to stretch muscles, breathe in some country air, focus all of their attention on the demands of the road, and the race against time. It is both exhilarating and liberating. Today, Victor had tried to bow out, saying he wasn't in the mood, but Sherlock had insisted, and it seems that it has done wonders for his boyfriend's mood. When Victor pedals the last bit to reach Sherlock waiting beside the road, he twists his cleats free from the pedals, swings his right leg over the bar, and wheels his bike up to him. After pulling his sunglasses off, without a glance aside, Victor reaches down to cup his right hand around Sherlock's chin, lifting it until his lips can reach his target.

It's a long, passionate kiss.

When a passing car gives a tiny beep of its horn, Sherlock breaks free and looks up into Victor's eyes which are bright with amusement.

"Don't worry. Lycra and helmets mean no one can tell who we are."

Sherlock considers whether he should tell Victor about the car that has been following them discretely. Its occupants are no mystery: this cycle circuit is one of the few times Sherlock can get a clear sighting of his brother's minions following them. Over the past month, on the four occasions they've done it, he's identified them. So, he knows that the surveillance teams are now being changed regularly, as if Sherlock would fail to notice them just because the same faces wouldn't appear.

His brother is an idiot, but Sherlock can ignore this level of scrutiny; it's not as if Mycroft doesn't already know everything about the two of them _._ Sherlock still takes great delight in ripping out the bugs that get planted whenever the two of them are away from the flat. To prevent Victor from being paranoid about the whole thing, Sherlock does his bug hunting when he's away from the flat. _Pest control._ He's taken to posting them back to Mycroft's London townhouse, usually with a sarcastic note attached.

Inside their current bubble, Sherlock feels safe enough, and even Jack Trevor is a problem that can be put on the back burner. It's there, smouldering a bit, but he's trying hard to do what Victor wants. His motivation has only increased after the visit to Colton Grange, because these intense weeks of togetherness have given him so many moments of absolute joy even when they are just existing in the same space. If this is what a future with Victor holds, Sherlock knows he wants it, body and soul.

He licks his lips as Victor gets back on his bike. His mouth is still feeling the rough rasp of Victor's stubble at the lip line; he doesn't shave on Sundays.

Victor is now looking at his watch. It's an expensive Tag Heur 2000, a chronometer with a stop watch function, given to him by his father for his twenty first birthday. "Time to synchronise for round four of the hare and the tortoise challenge. Once we're underway, you're going to bolt like hell, leaving me in your dust. But, somewhere around the golf course at Bourn, you're going to run out of puff and I'll catch you up."

Sherlock's grin is smug. "Nope; I think I can outpace you until Toft this time. At the current rate of improvement, I should be able to beat you all the way past the second golf course, then to Comberton next weekend, and finally the finish line at Barton the week after, just in time for exam week." He clips his right foot back into the petal and sets off, throwing a cheeky "See you later!" over his shoulder as he shifts down through the gears to maximise his speed.

oOoOoOoOo

They are still laughing as they come in the door.

Victor is enjoying being able to tease that he'd managed to catch up with Sherlock as they were almost neck and neck zooming through the two sharp bends at Toft. "All going according to plan," he says to rub it in.

Sherlock smirks. "I'd have beaten you off if some idiot hadn't pulled out of the Meridian Golf Club drive right in front of me." He had been forced to take evasive action, ending up in the rough gravel off the side of the road. One punctured tyre and a repair later, they decided to call it a draw and pedalled home more sedately, grateful that the accident had not ended in a visit to the A&E. Victor's heart had leapt into his throat when he saw Sherlock skidding in the gravel, but thankfully his balance had held.

As the door slams behind him, Victor lifts up his bike onto the wall-mounted brackets, quickly followed by Sherlock's, who hangs up both of their helmets. Sherlock clatters a few steps in his cycle shoes and then pulls the Velcro strap and toes them off, and Victor follows suit.

 _God_ , it had been so good to see Sherlock laugh and smile today. Neither of them has been in the best of moods recently since exams are approaching with what feels like lightning speed, Whenever Victor worries, it seems to transmit to Sherlock as well, who then usually nervously scrambles to distract him with whatever he can come up with, even if it means momentarily interrupting his exam work. It had been good that Sherlock had been adamant that they shouldn't skip their daily exercise. The fresh air had done wonders.

He can't resist putting both arms around Sherlock and pulling him close. They are both still hot and sweaty from the cycling; Lycra may be aerodynamically sensible, but it doesn't exactly breathe. The scent of sweat in Sherlock's damp curls is delicious, and Victor cannot resist: he starts to squeeze his hands into the back of those oh-so-tight cycling shorts to take a hold on that arse which had been tempting him all afternoon. He bends down to whisper in an ear, "I've heard of chasing tail, but by God yours is one worth getting my hands on." He decides to kiss off the smirk that is widening on Sherlock's lips, deepening it and getting his tongue in on the pleasure.

Sherlock surprises him by making a slight hop up, wrapping those long legs of his around Victor's waist. Pulling one of his hands away from Sherlock's arse and putting it below the boy's right thigh to hold him in place, Victor is now able to push his other hand further down between the cleft of those fine cheeks. There is a sudden exhalation of breath against his chest as his middle finger teases deeper, followed by a baritone hum of approval. With Victor carrying his weight, Sherlock gets to work with his own arms reaching around Victor's chest, pushing his hands up under the tight fitting, long-backed jersey, dragging softly a fingernail up his spine, which makes Victor hum with pleasure. The two of them are very obviously aroused; as he glances down at Sherlock's crotch, he snorts. "Lycra doesn't leave much to the imagination, does it?" Sherlock responds with a buck of his hips and a command: "Upstairs, _now_."

" _VICTOR!"_

The shout is so unexpected, coming from down the hall where it joins the kitchen.

In the split of a second, Victor realises that it is a voice he recognises. The roar is nearly animalistic in its fury—outraged in a way Victor has never heard before.

Without even knowing what he is doing, the conditioned reflexes of childhood kick in, and he lets go of Sherlock's legs, leaving the boy no time to get a foot beneath him before Victor steps away, looking down the hall at the figure advancing towards them with menace in his eye.

As Sherlock ends up in a heap on the floor, Jack Trevor starts yelling at the top of his lungs. " _YOU FILTHY PERVE! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY BOY?!_?"

Victor recovers from his shock enough to step between Sherlock and his father, whose fist is raised to strike.

He's never seen his dad hit anyone, not even when drunk. "Dad! _Stop!_ " He reaches over and catches his father's fist in his own hand. "Just stop it––your heart––just calm down!"

"My heart? You have your hands down his pants and you worry about my _heart_? Don't bother. The fact that you're with a poofter is enough to break it."

Jack looks down at Sherlock. "This fucking cretin, this arse bandit. Around my boy. Well, not while I'm still alive. You think you're so bloody clever, you poofters with your ways. Public school taught you all that shirt lifting shit? I should have listened to Chloe; she said someone bent was sniffing around Vic hell bent on ruining him, but I thought that was just her being bitchy when the engagement broke off."

"Dad, it's not like that––"

Victor's feeble protest rings on deaf ears because Jack's blazing gaze is still homed in on Sherlock. " _Get out_ , get out of here, Sherlock Holmes! If you ever get anywhere near my boy again, I'll have your guts on the end of my knife."

Victor, still reeling from the fact that his father is here, in his flat, yelling in a way he's never heard before, going absolutely ballistic, and that suddenly everything is out—well, nearly.

Sherlock is still sitting on the floor, and he appears to be as paralysed by shock as Victor feels. He's breathing heavily, blinking, pleading Victor with his eyes—to do what, Victor has no idea.

"Stop it, Dad. He's not going anywhere," he says, and steps closer to Sherlock, tempted to place a hand on his shoulder but another glance at Jack makes him hesitate. "Sherlock lives here," he tells his father. "He's been sharing the flat with me after Chloe moved out."

Jack turns a wild eye towards Victor, his face going redder every second. "You two have shacked up?! You're doing disgusting things with him here, in this flat?!"

Before Victor can answer, Jack turns back to Sherlock. "Get out. _Now."_ He heaves the bike off the wall and throws it towards Sherlock. Victor intercepts it just in time to stop Sherlock from getting clobbered.

Jack is still shouting: "Every damned thing of yours is going to be sent back to your college. You are never, _ever_ getting near Victor again!"

" _DAD!_ Stop it. Sherlock is going nowhere. He's here because I want him here. _I love him_ , and you can't say such awful things to him." His voice shakes a little as he speaks while leaning the bike up against the wall.

He hasn't said any of this to anyone out loud before; he's never even used the word love with Sherlock before. _It's the truth_. The realisation is staggering, but relief is a long way away.

"You don't know what _love_ is if you think this faggot deserves it!"

Victor turns his back on his dad and offers a hand to Sherlock, who is still sitting on the floor and won't meet his eye, so doesn't see the gesture. So Victor squats down to get into his eye line and says quietly: "You were right; I was wrong. Come on; time we told the truth." He offers his hand again, and this time, Sherlock takes it, coming to his feet.

Side by side, they confront Jack Trevor. Victor gestures to the living room. "In there, Dad. We're going to have a civilised conversation about this."

Jack's face contorts into a snarl. "No. There is nothing _civilised_ about homosexuality. You're not queer. You spent almost five years banging the headboards with Chloe. There is nothing you can say that could ever convince me that this filth hasn't somehow–– _bewitched_ you! That's what they do, they turn decent people into––into–– _them!_ "

Sherlock's hand has not released Victor's; he feels the grip tighten in response to the ugly tone in his father's voice.

"What have you got to say, then, poofter? Not even going to defend yourself? You were all mouth when you sat across my table, abusing my hospitality and lying through your teeth, but now haven't got a word to say for yourself?"

Sherlock's chin comes up and Victor watches a laser focus converge in those grey-green eyes, directed at Jack. "Why have you come here today? What is so important that you drove yourself here to talk to Victor about? There is no car outside, so you've parked it somewhere and let yourself in, unannounced. Why the surprise visit?"

Surprised by Sherlock's calm and quiet tone—given the amount of abuse that has just been thrown at him—Victor can only wonder why on earth he'd raised a subject that has to be irrelevant in the context of this nightmare.

His father is also unimpressed by Sherlock's answer. "None of that matters anymore. Surprised? Yeah, this sure is a surprise. You two boys had me fooled by your performance at Easter, assuming this––" he stabs a finger in their direction, "––has been going on for as long as you claim. Mind you, I never thought for a moment that Victor is a poofter, so you've done a thorough job converting him—behind my back." He shakes his head. "I can't believe it of you, Vic. You and Chloe; Christ, she made enough noise to tell everyone in the house that you were something in bed. You just can't be queer. I won't believe it, nor did she. She knew where to place the blame, and I should've listened. Should've done something _before_ you brought him into my house!"

Victor takes a deep breath. "It's not either–or, Dad. Never been for me. I've been attracted to both men and women ever since I realised I could be attracted to anyone. But I know that you're a dinosaur about these things, so I've never been brave enough to tell you."

He takes another deep breath, sets his shoulders and shifts closer to Sherlock, keeping Sherlock's hand in a firm grip. "I am telling you now. No more lies, because I have found the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. I love Sherlock and we've made plans for a future together. I've been accepted at the Cambridge business school, starting in the autumn. We're going to set up a biotech company next year to work on genome innovations. I won't be coming home this summer. I will stay here in the flat and prepare for the MBA. Sorry, this is not how I wanted to tell you any of this, but you leave me no choice."

 _There. It's all out now._

In trepidation, Victor waits for the explosion.

Something changes in Jack's stance. Rage is replaced by something Victor can't identify. The red in his father's face drains away and he goes pale.

Scared that his father's heart might be acting up, Victor gestures again to the living room. "Let's go sit down, Dad, _please_. I know this is a lot to take in. I was afraid to tell you, because you're not well."

"Fuck that, Vic." Jack's voice is now deadly quiet, glacially cold. "This filth has turned your head. If you are really telling me that you're going to stick by him, then you'd better know something: I won't be a party to this. It's my name on the flat lease. If you intend sticking together, you both have until the end of Exam Week to get out. Vic, I want you to think this over very carefully. If you agree to come home to Colton and never see this _thing_ again, then you can stay, and we can try to forget this ever happened. We'll fix everything, get you counselling, find professional help to clear your head of whatever crap has been planted there by this piece of shit."

Victor is stunned by the level of threat in his dad's voice. "And if I don't agree?"

"Then you're no son of mine. I'll cut you off without a penny. All my hard work raising you to be better than _her_ ––" Jack suddenly stops, draws a deep breath, and then continues, "I'll make this easier for you: it's him or me. If you decide to shame us both, destroy your future by spending one more night under the same roof as him, letting him root about in your arse, then you're not worthy of being my son and heir. Don't ever come home, don't ever contact me again. I'll see my solicitor in the morning and rewrite my will. I mean it, Vic. _Him or me._ "

Jack shoulders his way past the two of them, squeezes past the bicycle leaning up against the door, and opens the door to the street. He doesn't look back as he strides away down Saxon Street.


	33. Chapter 33

**Chapter 33 Messages**

* * *

As he sits down to eat his supper, Mycroft has the distasteful job of reviewing what has just been delivered to his townhouse: a recording of this afternoon's events in Cambridge. The head of the surveillance team has already given him a short precis, but Mycroft knows that he has to listen to the whole damned thing if he is to get a feel for just how bad this is going to be.

He presses the play button, and listens to Trevor Senior's torrent of abuse and Victor's attempt to defend himself and Sherlock. The horrible invective levelled at Sherlock makes Mycroft put his fork down for a moment. He can only thank God that their father had died before Sherlock's sexual orientation had become clearer. The man had been beastly enough to his younger son without having to add that particular fuel to the fire of patricidal hate.

He takes another bite of the lamb chop.

When the door of the Saxon Street flat is shut behind Jack Trevor, Victor's subsequent distress is caught on the recording. Only someone who has never watched a son reduced to tears by his father would mistake the sound of choked off sobs for anything else. Trying to reconcile the image that is brought to mind by the recording—a six foot five male the size of Victor—with the sounds of someone reduced to a blubbering wreck, Mycroft has to commend Sherlock for being the one who seems to be the calmest of the pair.

"We need a Plan C."

"How?" Victor can hardly form words. "…Even if we find some grotty digs, and even I can manage to find a summer job to pay rent, there's no way I can afford the tuition fees. The MBA is off. We're screwed. "

"No, it isn't off and we're not. We don't need his money."

"He's my _father_ ; how could he be so _hateful_?"

"He's family; they're always the worst. They know exactly how to hurt you more than anyone else because they've had a lifetime to learn your weaknesses."

Mycroft winces at this. He can only hope that Sherlock's assessment is levelled more at his father than at him.

"You don't understand."

"Yes, actually, I do. You're not the only one. I know what it is like to be disinherited… and disowned."

 _Damn_. Mycroft slaps the pause button, as he nearly chokes on his bite of lamb cutlet. The disinheritance is something that he'd striven hard to keep from Sherlock when their father had died five years ago. Yet, he's found out somehow. After his coughing fit passes, a shiver of discomfort makes him push his plate away, his appetite ruined. Clearly, he needs to stop thinking of Sherlock as a child, lest he manage to deduce other secrets, more deadly ones in the shape of Fitzroy Ford. After a few sips of water to calm himself, Mycroft pushes the play button on the recording device again.

His brother's baritone resumes: "When I was eighteen, I consulted a lawyer who was able to confirm what I had deduced about my father's will. To him, I was just the spare for his heir, and I'd outlived my usefulness. Not that I'd had much utility after I was born. He hated me all my life, because I didn't live up to his standards of normality. He had Mycroft, so he could cut me out, which he did with great glee. Luckily, my mother had made sure my trust fund was set up in her lifetime, and he couldn't stop her. So, don't worry about the money. I have enough for the both of us."

This provokes a sigh from Mycroft; as executor of that Trust Fund until Sherlock is twenty one, he can foresee a rather awkward conversation coming. Whatever rash promises he's making now, Sherlock knows that he has to wait another nine months before being able to make monetary decisions on his own.

The recording continues, with Victor being hesitant, unsure and unsettled, while Sherlock is surprisingly practical. The only wobbly comes when he asks point blank, "You did mean what you said to him? It wasn't just… I don't know, something to say, to throw back at him?"

"What?"

"That–– that you love me, and want to spend the rest of your life with me?"

"Yes, Sherlock. I mean that."

The last recorded conversation is of Sherlock telling Victor about the surveillance and then him obviously finding and destroying the bugs the team had planted while they had been on their bicycle ride. From that, Mycroft concludes that Sherlock had accepted that he would know about the debacle, but that they did want privacy later.

In an odd sort of way, this development will make their subsequent communication easier; Sherlock knows that he knows, and they won't have to discuss what had happened in any detail, just the solution. _Logical._

He waits up late, keeping awake until almost midnight in the certain belief that Sherlock will be contacting him. For a brief moment, when he finally turns off the light, he wonders whether his brother is having second thoughts about the rash promise about money. Perhaps he is growing up and starting to be more responsible about where he misplaces his emotions—and his funds.

Mycroft has always been able to sleep well, and not even tonight is an exception. However, when his blackberry chirps for an incoming text message in the middle of the night, it tends to have the desired effect. After all, only three people in the world have that number: Ketavan Ioseliani, Mrs Walters and his brother. So, Mycroft sits up and gropes for the phone on the bedside table to take a look.

 **02.12 I need you to release a sum from the trust fund into my bank account. Summer rent, subsistence, enough for two. Plus fees for an MBA. You've been listening; you know why. SH**

 _Oh, Sherlock_. Throwing money at this particular problem is probably not going to solve it, merely prolong the agony. If anything, it will make matters worse by drawing them out. Their relationship is becoming what Mycroft had feared: too expensive for Victor.

Staring at the message on the screen, Mycroft is surprised by the tinge of regret that he feels. Alas, Sherlock is going to try to hang onto Victor, despite the obvious consequences. It is no longer just his fiancée, his team captaincy and his circle of friends that are the price of being with Sherlock. It has now cost Victor his connection with his only close family member—a man he had always believed loved him. The assumptions that the boy would have made all his life about his position in society and his future prosperity had gone up in flames on the bonfire of Jack Trevor's homophobia.

Mycroft knows that no matter what the time is, Sherlock will be waiting for a reply. He gets up and goes downstairs to the library and sits in his favourite chair to consider the options.

This is almost certain to end badly. Yet, Mycroft knows that if he simply refuses, Sherlock will try to come up with some means to obtain funds, nearly all of which would involve illicit activities. And, would saying no make him any better than Jack Trevor? His motives may be different; he does not judge people by their sexual preferences. But, like Trevor, he'd be using money as a weapon, and that makes Mycroft uncomfortable.

Before he had seen the two young men together when he visited Cambridge, he might have just simply refused, in Sherlock's best interests. But now? Mycroft realises that he can no longer be the one to protect Sherlock from his own folly. Doctor Cohen had been right. Sherlock needs to come to realise his own mistake if he is ever going to learn how to avoid this sort of disastrous romantic entanglement in the future.

Mycroft realises that he is caught between a rock and a hard place. He cannot refuse outright, because then Sherlock will then blame him for the failure of the relationship. On the other hand, he should not enable a relationship that will invariably end in disaster and heartache.

Mycroft looks at the text message on his phone; the screen illuminates the library to a surprising degree. He starts to type:

 **02.15 We need to talk about the practicalities of this Plan C of yours in the morning. Try to get some sleep.**

oOoOoOoOo

Two weeks later

Sherlock is regretting that last cup of coffee that he'd downed just before his third exam started this morning. Tomorrow will be his last exam—the Part Two in Biochemistry. Because half of the grade for that one is dependent on the project he's been working on all year, he's more confident about it than he is about today's exam in Organic Chemistry.

The days have passed in a blur of caffeine, frantic studying and trying to keep both of them sane and on the right track; he's had to strain particularly hard to keep Victor somewhat calm and focused; everything depends on both of them doing as well as possible on the exams. Victor's admission to business school is conditional on his getting at least a 2:1; Sherlock's entry to Part III depends on a first.

Mycroft had told Sherlock that he was not going to even discuss what happens next in terms of Plan C because they both had to focus on their exams. " _A necessary pre-requisite_ ," is what he'd said; " _everything else is hypothetical at this stage_." He's right, but Sherlock would have preferred to minimise all uncertainties in their situation. And considering the hypotheticals consumes too much of his brain space for comfort.

Exam week has come crashing in on them too soon. Last year, he'd been able to focus only on preparing for the Part I A and B papers, which had proved to be a breeze. This year, he's struggled to keep focused, to _not_ think about everything else: Victor, where they were going to live once their lease expires, how they were going to afford it, whether Mycroft would allow him to stay in Cambridge for the summer, and lastly—most important of all—whether he would agree to release the trust fund money needed to finance Victor's MBA.

He looks up from his exam papers in the last fifteen minutes before the end of the allocated time, because right now, his sanity is being tested by something a little more immediate—the fact that he is desperate for a pee. As soon as the exam is over, he bolts for the loo, only to find a queue stretching down the corridor. On the way out the door, he'd thrown a look at the women's toilets, but the queues there were even longer. So, he gets on his bicycle and heads as fast as he can back to the flat. Why the Natural Sciences tripos exams had to be held anywhere other than the Chemistry department, he will never know. All he does know is that it is terribly inconvenient. He'd hoped to see Victor coming back to the flat after his morning exam, while he'd headed over for the afternoon exam to the Applied Mathematics buildings on Wilberforce Road, where all students with surnames ending in A to H were allocated. But, no familiar figure had appeared on the roads where they might have passed en route. This means that he hasn't had any news on how the law exam had gone; Victor had been very worried about it and having it as the last of his exams had given him too much time to fret and catastrophise.

As he arrives at the end of Saxon Street, the bounce of the tyres on the cobble stones is transferred up through the bike frame and the saddle, straight to Sherlock's strained bladder. He grabs for the door handle and groans out loud in frustration when he realises it's locked. Scrabbling for his keys in his back pocket, he fumbles to get in, throwing his bike up against the wall and bolting down the corridor to the downstairs loo.

It's only after he's done that he looks around and realises that while Victor is not in the flat even though he must have come back from his exam—his bike is hanging up. As he hoists his own bike onto the bracket, Sherlock spies a hastily hand-scribbled note that has been taped to it: _Check answer machine NOW_

The reference to the machine, as opposed to his mobile phone answering service, surprises Sherlock. Then, he remembers that he'd been forced to leave his phone at the flat. It is a disciplinary offence to have a phone with you during an exam, even if it is turned off.

The light on the machine in the living room is flashing as he touches the play button.

" _You have…two… new messages. Message… One_."

Sherlock has always hated that little pause as the machine inserts a pre-recorded number into the playback.

Finally, the voice he's hoping for appears on the tape: "It's me. I'm calling from the train _."_

The ambient sounds of rail transport in the background cannot disguise the fact that Victor sounds upset, almost panicky.

 _"_ Causton called while I was in my exam. Dad collapsed; he's been taken to Norwich hospital. That's where I'm headed. It sounds bad. I'll call you when I know more _."_

" _Seven June... Fourteen forty-three. To save this Message, press star. To delete, press hash_. _To continue listening to messages, press one._ "

Sherlock finds the asterisk. _Why can't the machine manufacturers name the keys correctly?_

" _Message… Two_."

"I'm at the hospital. It IS bad. The docs think if he doesn't get surgery today, then he won't make it. I'm going to stay here until I know he's alright." There's a pause, during which Sherlock can hear voices in the background, presumably other people in the hospital. "I'm sorry… I should have asked how your exam went. Thank God, mine are over; I don't think I could sit through another one with this hanging over my head. Bye for now; I'll call when I know something more."

" _Seven June...sixteen twelve. To save this Message, press star. To delete, press hash. To continue listening to messages, press One."_

Sherlock checks his watch. It's just past five now. He decides to save the message. Listening to it the once has told Sherlock what he fears, but he might pick up more on another round.

Going back into the kitchen to get his mobile phone out of the charger, Sherlock knows that there is nothing he can do about Jack Trevor, but he has no intention of leaving Victor on his own. _This is what friends do, isn't it? And boyfriends?_ The father might have disowned and disinherited his son, but the emotional ties aren't severed yet. That much has been obvious to Sherlock from watching Victor's behaviour these past few weeks. Even if he hadn't just heard the panic in Victor's voice, Sherlock would have guessed that this is going to hit him hard.

Victor answers on the second ring.

"It's me. Any news?"

"No. Not yet. Last time anyone here spoke to me, they said they were trying to get him stable enough to go into surgery."

"I'm going to catch the next train to Norwich. I'll be there as soon as I can."

" _NO!_ Don't you dare!"

"Why not?" Sherlock is confused. Being there for each other is something that Victor has repeatedly said is important. Isn't this what people do in a family emergency; prioritise it over everything else?

"You have an exam tomorrow; remember? Biochemistry; isn't that the one you say is going to get you that first? You need to study tonight, get some sleep and be focused tomorrow."

"You shouldn't have to do this on your own. I can get there and back in time." He grabs the train timetable off the kitchen counter; Victor must have left it there when he was deciding to go to Norwich. "I should be there just after eight. The first train leaves Norwich tomorrow at five thirty; plenty of time to make it to the exam at nine."

"No. You can't risk it; what happens if there is breakdown and you get stuck on the train? Being here means you aren't studying, aren't sleeping. Anyway, there is nothing you can do here. What happens to him now is up to the doctors. There's nothing either of us can do. YOU need to study tonight and get yourself that first."

"Victor, I want to be with you."

"No. In fact, I'm going to turn off my phone now. Whatever the hell happens to Dad tonight, I'm not going to tell you, because your bloody brother is right. These exam results are _everything_ , Sherlock."

"Victor––"

The line goes dead. Sherlock stares at his phone in disbelief. He hits redial.

"The number you require is not available. Please leave your message after the tone."

The mechanical voice annoys Sherlock so much that he's tempted to throw the phone against a wall.

oOoOoOoOo

 **One Day Later**

Sherlock looks at the screen of his phone in annoyance. It had rung when he was running to Platform 3; the call would have gone to the message service while he was still throwing himself in the carriage. The platform guard had been whistling at him and shaking his head, but he'd managed to squeeze himself in through the one last open door, which the train guard had been just about to shut.

"Next time, don't cut it so fine."

Sherlock doesn't deign to reply, just pushes past the guard and goes into the last carriage. Still panting from the exertion, he keys in the numbers to connect to the messaging service.

"You have… one… new message."

He knows that, and has to take a deep breath to stop himself from shouting at the phone.

" _Hello. Mister Holmes? This is Jason Causton. I got your number from Victor, who has asked me to telephone you to say that I will pick you up at the station. He is assuming that you are on the twelve thirty-five train, arriving at fourteen thirteen. If this is not the case, I would be grateful if you could leave a message on 07779 145672. Thank you."_

Sherlock has taken a window seat with his back facing away from the engine and is now trying to calm himself. After a nearly sleepless night and two and a half hours of frantic writing in his last exam he is exhausted, but so keyed up on caffeine and cigarettes (what Victor doesn't know won't hurt him) that his leg starts jiggling of its own accord. And, his hand hurts. Why does the university insist on hand-written answers? Don't they know that nearly everyone is faster at typing than they are at using pencil and paper?

He's annoyed by Causton's message. Victor still isn't answering his phone, so Sherlock has no idea how Jack Trevor is. The butler could at least have told him _something_ , surely? Or, could Victor have instructed him not to? Why would he do that? Should he call Causton and try to deduce the truth out of him?

This, just this, is what he hates. Being out of touch with Victor means that his mind races to worst case scenarios. What if Jack Trevor is using his ailment to get Victor alone so he can persuade him to leave Sherlock? If they'd done surgery yesterday evening, then surely they would have woken him up at the ITU this morning at the latest, barring complications? What might the two of them be saying to each other?

There's also the weak hope that this brush with mortality might change the man's mind about disowning Victor, but Sherlock isn't about to start believing in such sentimentality. Nothing had managed to alter Richard Holmes' abysmal opinion of Sherlock, and Jack Trevor had sounded equally hateful during his visit. He knows, however, that most of the man's invective had been aimed at him, rather than at Victor.

Why would Victor be willing to drop everything and leave Sherlock behind for a father who had hurt his own son so greatly and abandoned him? Shouldn't he and Victor be facing problems together, now—isn't that how boyfriends are expected to behave?

Sherlock knows he is catastrophising, but he has no more chance of stopping this train of thought than he has of stopping this train. Actually, as his eye lands on the little red handle beside the window, Sherlock knows he could stop this train by pulling the emergency alarm. Right now, he wishes he had one attached to his brain.

oOoOoOoOo

 **Two hours and fifteen minutes later**

"Good Afternoon, Mister Holmes."

Before he'd even reached Range Rover, Sherlock had noticed that the car's only occupant is Causton. He bites back his disappointment that Victor has not come. Perhaps he is still with his father at the hospital?

He scrambles into the back seat. As they leave the station approach road and turn left onto the A147, Sherlock asks how long the drive to the hospital is.

Causton's answer brings a shock: "I'm taking you to Colton Grange, Mister Holmes. Victor asked me to convey a message: his father died this morning while you were taking your exam."

"What do you mean, 'died'? How? Of _what_?"

The butler gives him an apologetic glance through the rear view mirror. "I'm afraid I don't have the details. Victor has returned to the house and is waiting for you there."

Sherlock is so stunned by the news he cannot find more to say.

Sherlock had done some research, quietly, without telling Victor. Cardiac valve stenosis is certainly a serious problem if advanced enough—well, any cardiac malfunction is—but valve repair surgery has a high success rate. Aortic valve replacement surgery has a very reassuring 94% five year survival rate. Victor's father's problem seems to have been less severe, given that his doctors were merely monitoring things instead of having hospitalised him when the problem was diagnosed, so clearly the valve could not have been critically narrowed and stiffened. Dying during this kind of surgery was very rare indeed, less than 3%, according to the article Sherlock had researched at the library.

According to Victor, Jack Trevor didn't have any other diagnosed illnesses and was an otherwise fit man in his late fifties.

 _So, he shouldn't have died. Why would he have died?_ _It makes no sense!_

Worse still, Sherlock has no idea what effect this will have on Victor. Will he be grieving? When his own father had died, Sherlock had actually rejoiced, whereas losing his mother had been completely different. The grief still sat there like a black hole in a place that he tried to forget about. He'd only been a child then, and his mother had been a good person, loving and kind to him. Perhaps the only one who did before Victor. So, is Victor feeling that kind of loss? Or, as an adult, would he be calmer about it all, or mostly just angry about Jack's threats to disown him? Where along the spectrum of grief would Victor fall? How should Sherlock react to that? What would Victor expect him to do, how to act? He doesn't know how to console others; he doesn't have much experience ever being at the receiving end of such treatment. Will Victor want to stay at home for some time, or will he want to return to Cambridge?

 _Too many questions._

They've nearly cleared the ring road, about to head due west towards Colton, when Sherlock manages to parse together something he hopes is tactful enough: "How's he taking it?"

Causton's answer is immediate. "Badly, I think, but I've scarcely spoken with him."

"Do you know if his father regained consciousness? Did they speak?"

The butler shakes his head. "As I said, I don't know the details. You will have to ask Victor about that."

"Has he said anything to you?" He knows he probably sounds like he is prying, but right now Causton is the only source of data he has at his disposal to prepare for whatever awaits him at the house.

"Not really. He thanked me for calling him about Mister Trevor being taken to hospital, then went into the house, saying he wanted to be left alone. It was about an hour later that he telephoned me in my flat to ask if I would mind picking you up. That's when he gave me your phone number."

The next thirty-one minutes pass in silence. Sherlock is trying to consider every possible permutation of the problem, and the list of questions grows longer with every mile that passes.

oOoOoOoOo

The house is quiet. Causton has carried his bag in, and announces that he is going to put the Range Rover in the garage.

Anxiety making him pace in the foyer, Sherlock waits until he hears the gravel crunching under the car tyres. Only then does he go to find Victor, who turns out to be sitting in the conservatory, staring blankly. His eyes are red-rimmed, his chin unshaven, clothes rumpled from spending a night and more than a day in them.

Wordlessly, Sherlock drops to his knees in front of him, getting into his line of sight and placing a gentle hand on a knee.

It takes a moment, but Victor's eyes eventually focus and his strained breathing eases as if he's finding it slightly easier to keep tears at bay. His arms come up and gather Sherlock up, pulling him into his lap. It's all a bit clumsy, but his need for contact is so clear that Sherlock just surrenders to the embrace.

 _This. This is what boyfriends do._

Before Victor, he had never factored in such surprising physical intimacy, because he had simply equated romantic relationships with sex. All this is so new; before Victor he had never understood what all the fuss was about. Sex was… well, just _sex,_ but being together like this, sharing things without words, to be able to communicate so much more through physical contact than words which could be treacherous and fickle—this is what has truly connected them together. Sex, he has had with strangers; this, he had not even considered could exist in his life.

He breathes in the new hues in Victor's scent: nervous sweat, a trace of hospital disinfectant still clinging to the boy's clothes. It brings back odd memories of Sherlock's own time in clinics—memories he hastily shoves back under the floorboards of his Mind Palace.

 _Not now._ This isn't about him; it needs to be about Victor, who still isn't saying anything.

As Sherlock continues to embrace the broad shoulders in front of him, Victor presses Sherlock's head against his chest, and he can feel Victor's breathing becoming rough and ragged again, and a strangled, pained, ugly sob escapes from somewhere deep in his throat. There are tears dropping down onto Sherlock's scalp and curls, now, as Victor is crying, and the sound of it takes up physical residence inside Sherlock's chest, constricting it with pain as if someone is squeezing the very life out of him.

There's a gasp that arduously evolves into words. "Sorry; can't stop. I've–– I've tried."

"It's fine," Sherlock tells him, and hopes that just staying right where he is will be enough, that is it what is needed. It'd be hard to extricate himself from Victor's arms; he's being held tight, like a lifeline.

Sherlock is not one for crying—well, not _much_ anymore. Sometime after he'd come back from Kings Court, aged ten, he'd stopped it for all but the most extreme emotional pain. In his father's presence such behaviour was like adding fuel to the flames of his dislike of Sherlock. When his brother had found him at the police station and frogmarched him off to rehab at the age of seventeen was the only other time he can remember having cried properly and even that had been borne more out of frustration than sadness.

Which is why he surprises himself by realising that his own eyes are starting to prickle with wetness, and he has to draw a deep breath.

 _I don't know what to do._

He's getting upset by extension, at a time when surely one of them needs to keep their wits about them. He feels helpless, having no idea at all how to calm Victor down. He needs to keep a clear head if the Jack Trevor Paradox is going to be solved. Both he and Victor need to understand what has happened and how it _could_ have happened, so that they can start formulating a plan to move forward from this mess. Surely that would be better and more useful and conveniently distracting, unlike sitting here and wallowing in grief about what has just happened? Sherlock pushes his palms gently against Victor's chest to give him a way to make eye contact, but Victor's eyes stay downcast.

"What did the doctors say about why he died? He shouldn't have died; there has to be a reason. Did he regain consciousness? Did he say anything to you?"

It's like the floodgates have opened and Sherlock can't stop the questions coming.

"Do you know if he did talk to his lawyers about his will? How did he collapse and did he regain consciousness before you arrived? Is it possible that this happened before he could have changed the will?"

His runaway train of thought is pushing Sherlock's unshed tears away. Practicality has to trump emotion, and he hopes that considering the facts will help Victor regain his composure.

Victor does stop crying, but instead of relieved, he looks shocked out of sadness by surprise. "My dad just _died_ and you want to talk about Plan C?!"

"Needs must." Sherlock clambers off of Victor's lap, grabs another chair from the table and turns it to face Victor before taking a seat. "Tell me _everything_."

Victor shakes his head. "Not much to say. Well, not much. The doctors just said that something odd had happened. They thought it was his valve giving up the ghost, but nothing seemed to help. They asked if he'd been feeling worse the week before, if he could have been in what they called worsening dysfunction for some time but I didn't know, and he'd given the Caustons some time off so nobody could really tell–– There was something wrong with his ECG, they called it something weird."

"Try to remember."

"Why does it matter? He's _dead_." Victor's tone is pained.

"It does matter," Sherlock insists. "He shouldn't have died."

Victor looks distressed and a bit annoyed. "They said ventricular arrhythmia, and something about brachia… I don't know."

"Bradycardia?"

Victor nods. "They tried a lot of things for the dysfunction, but it didn't seem to help. They wanted him more stable for surgery, but since nothing was working they had to just go ahead. They got him into the operating room and on the heart by-pass machine, but it was too late. The heart had been too damaged, somehow. He died in the operating room when they tried to wean him off the bypass, his heart wouldn't start again."

The rest sounds plausible, but why wouldn't anything work for the dysfunction? And why bradycardia? Is that common with a valve problem? "When did he have bradycardia? Why would they have mentioned that?"

"I don't _know!_ " Victor shouts, startling Sherlock. It sounds as though he's doing something wrong, which can't be, because he's just trying to be rational.

"No, I didn't get a chance to talk to him," Victor adds in a more composed tone. "He didn't regain consciousness after the ambulance picked him up here, when I was in my exam."

"Excuse me." The voice comes from the doorway into the kitchen. Causton is there with a tray of what Sherlock can smell is fresh-brewed coffee. The butler enters and puts the tray down on the glass table. "You both look like you could do with this."

Victor looks away, as if uncertain about wanting the man present, but Sherlock seizes the opportunity. "Causton… I understand you were the one who found him and called the ambulance. So, presumably you were the last one to see him conscious. When? The night before? What was his mood like?"

The butler is pouring out the black coffee for Sherlock and putting milk in for Victor's. Then he puts in two teaspoons of sugar into each mug before passing them over.

"His mood? A bit worse than it's been. And it's been bad, I have to say. Ever since that woman appeared."

Sherlock's eyebrows shoot up. "Woman? What woman?"

"That's just the thing. I'm not sure. She showed up on the doorstep about a fortnight after Easter. Bold as brass, she was. Rang the doorbell and told me that she was here to see your father. I told her that business appointments were handled by the company and she should call them for an appointment. She just laughed and said to tell him that she'd come all the way from New Zealand to see him about a contract, and she wouldn't be put off."

Sherlock takes a quick swallow of scalding coffee and then asks, "What was her name? Describe her to me."

"She was about your age, maybe a few years older? Hard to tell. She wouldn't give a full name, just Geez. She pronounced it the way young people do—you know, like _Jesus_. Then she spelled it, G.E.S.S."

Sherlock feels something; a glimmer of light, a piece of data coming together in the back of his mind, but he can't quite grasp it before it slithers back into hiding. He's still so tired from the exam that he inwardly curses his slowness. "What happened next?"

"Well, that was the weird thing. When I made her wait in the sitting room, I went to tell your father who was in the study. He went white as a sheet, and for a moment, I thought he was going to faint. I knew about his heart condition; I'd driven him to his appointment that morning. He said he would deal with her and told me to take the rest of the day off, and that he wouldn't need my wife to cook anything. So we went off to Cromer for the rest of the day; had a lovely time on the beach.

"She stayed almost ten days. Your father's behaviour around her was quite strange. He was desperate to please her, but she seemed a hard one. A bit insolent, but maybe that is just the way New Zealanders are. He made me get out the finest wines, and my wife pushed the boat out with her cooking, but nothing seemed to make her smile."

"Did you ever find out why she was here?" Victor asks.

At almost exactly the same time, Sherlock asks "Why did she leave?" He's relieved that Victor is finally catching on and calming down. Seeing him so–– _affected_ had made Sherlock's anxiety soar.

Causton looks from one to the other of them. "No, and I don't know. But she did, and I said goodbye to bad rubbish. She made him… distressed. Afterwards, he was depressed. Quiet, wouldn't talk about it, though. You know your dad, Victor; he's a pretty private person."

Sherlock notes the present tense. Why is it so hard for people to accept when someone is dead? He considers the timing and realises that Jack's surprise visit to them had been just after she'd left. "And then he drove to Cambridge. Did he tell you why?"

The butler shakes his head, then rubs his hand though his greying hair. "No. Insisted on driving himself; I tried to dissuade him, his heart and all; even with Sunday traffic, I didn't think it wise of him, but he insisted. When he came back, he was _angry._ In a way I'd never seen before."

The butler looks at Sherlock and then Victor. Quietly, he continues, "But I think I know why. You two—you're together, aren't you?"

Victor just closes his eyes, as if remembering the pain of that horrible afternoon. Sherlock says it for them both: "Yes."

"That would explain his anger. He's never been one to accept _that._ Made a big song and dance about it when I was first hired. Luckily, I could tell him I was engaged. He grilled Sharon, my fiancée a lot, in private, before he would sign our contract, and wanted us to be married before we took up the positions. She was rather put out about it but wouldn't tell me why. "None of his bloody business, what he asked me about, nor yours," she said. I talked her out of walking away, and I have to say that the past twenty one years with the family have made me glad I did."

Victor opens his eyes. "Both of you've always been there for me, and for him, too. Once I got older I used to say to him that he'd never start looking for another wife as long as he had you two. He'd laugh and say the two of you were better than any wife ever could be." He extends a hand to the older man.

Causton grasps it in comfort. "If I ever doubted our reasons for staying, you kept us here. Such a little tyke, left motherless since a baby. Sharon and I couldn't abandon you to some nanny, as your father had suggested."

Sherlock interrupts this exchange of sentimentality. "Twenty-one years… You must have known Mrs Trevor? Why wouldn't he ever talk about her? Why did he strip out of this house everything that could have helped Victor know more about her?"

Victor snaps his head around to stare at Sherlock. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Sherlock rocks back in his seat, momentarily surprised by the boy's venom. "Maybe a lot; maybe nothing. Let him answer the question and I might know which." In the back of his mind, a tiny flare of understanding appears, like a match being struck.

Causton is looking a bit uncomfortable. Sherlock gets up and drags another chair over, pointing at it. "Sit down. It will help you think more clearly."

"I'm not sure I should say. Mister Trevor had me swear never to mention her in this house, after she died."

Sherlock nearly grinds his teeth in frustration. "He's _dead._ What he doesn't know can't hurt you. But perpetuating Victor's ignorance is just cruel now."

Both Causton and Victor appear surprised by the intensity of Sherlock's point, but if he can't break through the shroud of mystery, he's not going to be able to fan the tiny flame into a fire.

Causton bites his lips and then purses them. Sherlock has learned enough about expressions to know that this means he is thinking, weighing things up.

"Please. It's important."

Victor starts to protest, but Sherlock reaches over and puts a warning hand on the boy's substantial thigh. "For Victor's sake, he deserves the truth."

"Well, I suppose it won't hurt now. Truth is, I never met your mother. She was away when we got here; it was just your father, you and a nurse. He said she was unwell; a case of very bad post-natal depression meant she'd been hospitalised and was recovering in a private clinic."

Victor's eyes widen.

"Time passed and well, she never came home. Your father never took anything out of the house to stop him from thinking about her; there was never anything of hers here in the first place. You were born in a London hospital, I think, while the house was being built. Eighteen months after we started here, Mister Trevor announced that she'd died. He went away for a couple of days to arrange things, and then came home, carried on just like he had before. I have to say we were a bit surprised that he didn't have the funeral here in Colton. She could have been buried in the churchyard, and he could have visited the grave with you as you grew up."

The flame starts to take hold. But he has no evidence. Sherlock stands up. "We need to do some digging in your father's study."

Victor gives him a suspicious but tired look. "Why? I don't go in there—he's told me not to."

"Changed circumstances." Sherlock holds his hand out to Victor. "Come on!"

Victor doesn't budge. "What does all this matter? It was long ago and far away. I don't care about my mother; I never knew her. Dad's just died, Sherlock; this isn't what we should be doing! It's not––respectful!"

Sherlock frowns. Why won't Victor see that obviously they need to understand why this has all happened? "In that case I'll do it for you, including finding out whether he changed his will, although I think on the basis of what Causton has just said, it is highly likely that he did."

Wearily, Victor gets up and follows Sherlock into the study.

oOoOoOoOo

Somewhere about the time when Sherlock is stuck trying to hack Jack Trevor's computer password, Victor falls asleep. He'd sat on the sofa while Sherlock rifled through the 'in' and 'out' boxes on the desk, and grimaced when Sherlock had handed over the letter from Fosters—the Norwich solicitors Jack employs both for his company business and private work. A quick scan shows Sherlock that his assumption is right; the letter —advises Jack that the new will was now filed with them and a certified copy would be sent to the new, named beneficiary. Unfortunately, the letter did not specify who that person was, and a copy of the actual will is not in the study.

"Can you call the solicitor and ask for a copy? Or at least find out who the beneficiary is?"

Victor had grimaced. "I know there's a whole load of shit I have to sort out: death certificates, solicitors, funeral arrangements. Just… _not now._ I need some time."

"It matters; it's almost certain that you've been disinherited, but the solicitors should still be open, it's not yet five o'clock."

"Sherlock. Give me a break. Monday is soon enough. Anyway, the fact that there is a new will means that Plan B is dead; I guess we're stuck with Plan C, provided your brother agrees to the money."

"Maybe. If not, we wait nine months, and then he can't stop me."

"Nine months is a long time." Victor had yawned, looking as though he might fall asleep sitting up.

"Says the man who wanted to wait a whole year before telling his father we were together."

Victor had turned out to be too tired to argue. His eyelids had been seriously drooping by the time Sherlock moved onto the filing cabinet, and now he's sprawled across the sofa, fully asleep judging by his breathing.

Fortunately, the filing cabinet isn't locked. Unfortunately, that also means that it's unlikely that Jack Trevor would have stored anything sensitive there. As he suspects, Sherlock finds it yields little in the way of useful information that can fuel the fire burning in his mind.

He moves back to the PC. After the umpteenth time of trying to identify the eight spaces of the password, Sherlock is beginning to question his assumption that Jack would have used Victor's name plus some two numbers, as most passwords need both letters and numbers to be considered safe. Jack was the sort of man who would go with what was expected, but not be very original in his choice. Seeking some inspiration, he grabs the copy of Victor's birth certificate from the filing cabinet. It does indeed confirm that Victor had been born at the Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Maternity Hospital, the son of Jack Trevor and Gloria Trevor, neé Scott.

He goes to work on variations of Gloria. Six attempts in using variations of Victor's birthday in different positions, the password is accepted and he breathes a sigh of relief.

Twenty minutes later, he is trying to ignore Victor's snores and his own rising frustration. None of the Boolean string searches has yielded what he is looking for amidst the man's Word and PDF files.

He moves onto email. As the messages are listed in chronological order with the most recent at the top, it does not take him long to find what he is looking for. Down past the daily newsletter from _Farmer's Weekly_ and _Farming today_ , past the Ocado marketing bumf and several pieces of scam spam, he finds an email listed as being from P, dated on Wednesday.

 _Oh!_ The fire flares into brightness. Opening it, he holds his breath:

From: P

To: T

Subject: Urgent

Our usual supplier of hens for your larder is off. Must try again next spring. My local farmer's wife knows a supplier who'll meet our needs. Would be a crime to miss this. She wants lots of £££. My confession? I think we must fly with it. Or for longer term security of your supplier, take deal for life.

In haste,

Peter.

The fuse lit by the flame starts racing. _J_ and _P_ —Jack and Peter! The initials, inked into the Maori tattoo in _New Zealand._ And then removed some time later.

Now, the fuse starts to sputter: what the hell did this weird message actually mean? And why would it have disturbed Jack so much?

He wakes Victor up with a firm shake of his shoulder. Bleary-eyed at first, and then with focus. "What?! Have you found something?"

"Maybe. There is a greenhouse here at the Grange?"

Victor gapes at him. "What the hell does that matter?"

"Yes or no? Or a garden shed?"

"Sure. Both."

"Go get Causton and look in both for things out of place or suspicious, or poisonous if you can identify something as such."

"What?! Why?"

"Because I have a suspicion but no proof yet that your father may have been either murdered or taken his own life."

"Sherlock, he died of a heart condition." Victor's tone is bewildered . "What are you playing at?"

"A heart condition, yes, but assisted on the way by a chemical that would make sure that condition was not treatable. _Go._ Do this and let me keep working here."

oOoOoOoOo

Playing with codes and ciphers is something that Mycroft had introduced Sherlock to when he was little. With the hindsight of adulthood and a lifetime spent in the occasional company of his brother, Sherlock now knows that most of the "little puzzles", as Mycroft had called them, had been designed to keep him occupied and out of his father's way.

Apart from the Mind Palace, for which Sherlock is eternally grateful to Mycroft, the skills taught to him by his brother and his love of solving puzzles have little utility now that he is grown, except perhaps as a precursor to his experimental approach to science. He still finds it surprising how many chemists lack the ability to step outside of the known and ask the questions that really _need_ to be asked. But, deciphering a weird message like the one sent from Peter Spencer to Jack Trevor does not need experimentation, just a methodical approach.

Once he's printed out the sheet, Sherlock goes out of the study and is half way across the conservatory when Victor and the butler re-appear from the kitchen. Causton is carrying a mortar and pestle.

"I found this in the potting shed, Mister Holmes. It belongs in the kitchen and was definitely in the cupboard where it should be two nights ago, because my wife made a curry for Mister Trevor's supper. She always toasts and grinds her own spices. What it is doing in the shed is beyond me."

Sherlock bends over the butler's hand that is carrying the small wooden bowl with a stone pestle in it. "You didn't touch the inside, did you? Or handle the pestle?"

"No. We've both washed our hands, just in case. "

Sherlock nods. "I can see from the study window that the garden in the back has both foxgloves and monkshood growing. Do you know if the gardeners collect seed? Or are the plants raised from seeds bought in?"

Causton nods. "Only bought in seeds. Mister Trevor doesn't like it when they crossbreed; the wrong colours end up in the wrong places, so all the self-seeded versions of the garden perennials are always pulled up."

"So, an easily available poison in seed form is pulverised into a powder. That's quicker to act than just eating some of the leaves, and the concentration is higher, so one can be more certain of the outcome. Now all we need is evidence of how he ingested it."

Wordlessly, Victor holds up what he's been carrying in his hand: a mug. Causton answers for him; "This is from the kitchen, too. It was next to the mortar."

Sherlock grabs hold of his hand, brings it and the mug close to his face and takes a sniff. "Whiskey. A good idea to conceal any bitter taste."

Sherlock considers what he knows from his own experiments with aconite. It's all still fresh in his head, given the proposal he'd handed in to Professor Blay. "Do you remember, Victor, what I told you about my project for next year? Monkshood or as it is sometimes called Wolfs Bane is extremely poisonous. Your father's death is most likely aconitum poisoning—aconitine is the primary toxin in monkshood. It creates symptoms similar to the ones you described to me, Victor. It would also explain why the doctors couldn't help him. They wouldn't have known that he was poisoned, and his valve issue led them down the wrong explanation."

Victor's dismay is clear. "Why? Why would anyone poison him? Are you saying that somehow this weird visitor from New Zealand had something to do with it?"

"Yes, but not in the way you are thinking. First, put those things down. The police will want them as evidence. And, keep your hands away from your mouths, both of you, until you can thoroughly scrub them."

Startled by that order, both of them comply as Sherlock sinks back into the chair he'd vacated a few hours ago. His hands come up to steeple under his chin, and his eyes close. "Oh, do sit down both of you. You're making me nervous."

As he takes his seat, Victor takes a deep breath and then snaps, "Sherlock. Telling me Dad was murdered… it's just not on unless you have absolute proof. You can't go around saying stuff like that, especially not today."

"I'm no longer sure that he was murdered. Balance of probability is that he took his own life."

 _"Christ, Sherlock!_ You think that's any better!? Why the fuck would Dad top himself?" Victor makes no effort to hide his outrage, and he's blinking away tears again.

"Because of this." Sherlock hands over the sheet with the printed email. Causton looks over Victor's shoulder so he can read it, too.

Sherlock explains, "I started by rearranging the words of the message, got nowhere and then realised it's a skip code. I tried focusing first on every other word, then every third, and then every fourth. When I got to every fifth word, the result has some meaning.

Our usual supplier of _hens_ for your larder is _off_ **.** Must try again next _spring._ My local farmer's wife _knows_ a supplier who'll meet _our_ needs. Would be a _crime_ to miss this. She _wants_ lots of £££. My _confession_? I think we must _fly_ with it. Okay? Or _for_ longer term security of _your_ supplier, take deal for _life_.

In haste,

Peter.

Sherlock continues, "On the night before your father collapsed, Peter Spencer sent him a message that reads: ' _hens offspring knows our crime, wants confession. Fly for your life_.'"

Victor's confusion is evident. "I don't understand."

"The initials J and P stand for Jack and Peter. If you follow the logic of this through, they were both in on a crime, probably committed in New Zealand, and someone who knows about it came recently to the UK to pursue them. If you have Peter Spencer's number, call it and tell him that your father is dead. Put it on speaker phone so I can hear what he has to say."

"That's… just ridiculous! And what the hell has this got to do with my mother? You started this whole crazy thing when Causton told you she'd been in a mental institution. Dad would have been heartbroken that mum was unwell. I'm not surprised he wouldn't talk about it. He could hardly tell me as a kid, _Hey, son, your mum went crazy just after you were born and she died in a loony bin_. In a situation like that; no wonder he didn't want to talk about it! It doesn't need to be some conspiracy."

Sherlock is getting frustrated by Victor's unwillingness to consider the obvious facts. How could he not see the connection? "There is most likely to be a link between the crime committed, perhaps by both Jack and Peter, and what happened to your mother", he explains. Maybe grief is clouding Victor's mind. He belabours the point so it will get through: "It is rather convenient to put a possible witness into an institution and say she's crazy. It invalidates any sort of protest she might make as the demented ramblings of a mentally ill person."

"Sherlock. You're making this up. This isn't some… story out of one of Chloe's stupid soap operas."

Sherlock pulls out his phone and hands it to Victor. "Call Peter Spencer. His reaction will tell you whether I am on the right track."."

"I can't call him and accuse him of some crime!"

"You don't have to. Just tell him your father is dead, and that you've seen the email he sent Jack."

The butler stands up and announces, "I'll get you the number. It's in Mister Trevor's address book. "

Victor is not convinced, Sherlock can tell. At least Causton appears to be on his side. What more does Victor want before he is willing to trust Sherlock enough to do the sensible thing?

"I don't believe this. I don't want to believe this."

"The logic holds, the evidence may be circumstantial, but the data we know fits the hypothesis. Just call Spencer; if I'm wrong, _and I'm not_ , that call will sort it. Why are you so reluctant to accept the truth? Don't you want to know what happened to your father?" He offers Victor the phone again.

Victor's expression tells him the answer to his question even before he speaks. "Actually, no. I don't care what Peter says. Dad is _dead_ , and right now the likeliest reason I can see is that he killed himself because of what I told him. You were there, you saw his reaction about me telling him what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, about us, about me and you. That's a damned sight more likely an explanation than your crazy idea. If you're right and the police can prove that the poison killed him and that it matches what's in these things from the kitchen, then I'm going to feel worse and even more guilty than I did before, because _it'll be my fault!"_ He shouts this last bit, face contorting with anger, before yelling, "If you are right about the poison, because of what you and I did to him, he took his own life. This story you are making up? It's wrong and even if it weren't, it wouldn't change a thing. Why can't you see that?"

Victor gets to his feet and leaves the room, every step telegraphing his anger.


	34. Chapter 34

**Chapter 34: Reparation**

* * *

The weekend following Jack Trevor's death is a bonfire of anxiety on which Sherlock is trapped. The worst part is that Victor appears to have abandoned him to negotiate this maze of emotional fallout completely alone.

On Friday afternoon, after storming off, Victor retreats to the pool, swimming lap after lap of self-flagellating exercise.

Sherlock watches from a deck chair. He opens his mouth several times to attempt to start a conversation, but gets ignored. Finally, when he takes off his socks and rolls up his trousers and sits down with his legs in the water, Victor stops for a moment, clinging to the edge dragging in breaths.

Having gotten Victor's attention, Sherlock goes for addressing the elephant in the room, but he's not gone further than "Can we…?" before Victor drowns it by shaking his head with a scowl, kicking off for another punishing set of laps.

An awkward hour later, his fingers pruned and shivering from cold, Victor ignores Sherlock's offered hand to help him out, heaves himself out of the pool and walks silently back into the house, dripping water onto the carpets since he had forgotten to bring a towel with him.

He keeps wandering around the house aimlessly as though trying to make some sense of it when it is missing its usual occupant. Sherlock follows him around, feeling useless, embarrassed and so very out of his depth. Victor seems to be looking for something to calm himself down but doesn't appear to even know himself what it is. Why won't he stop wasting time, go through everything they know and try to apply some logic into the whole mess? That's what Sherlock has been doing, but his efforts have been rewarded with nothing but vague insinuations that he's being insensitive. How could it be insensitive, trying to make sense of Jack Trevor's death? Isn't that what Victor is trying to do by wandering around the house and staring out of the windows into the bleak, rainy landscape that offers no answers?

One would assume that mealtimes would coax forth some communication but, if anything, they are worse. Neither he nor Victor seems able to face the thought of going into the dining room; too many painful memories of the last time the three of them sat there.

So, Sharon Causton sets them a Friday dinner in the kitchen, serving up a bowl of light pasta. Victor is monosyllabic at best, shovelling the food in, chewing it as fast as he can and then chasing it down with water. Finished in what can't be more than five minutes, he throws his napkin on the breakfast bar before muttering a thank you to the cook and disappearing.

Sherlock hardly touches his food, distraught by his increasing belief that he is being punished, that somehow this sudden alienation is his fault. Of course, he'd known to expect grief and shock in Victor, but where is all the anger coming from? Why is it directed at him?

Here it is, then, what Mycroft has been harping on about: Sherlock is acutely faced with his own failure to understand relationships, his inability to deduce what should and should not be done, how to act and from what to refrain. There's no script for this sort of occasion to save him from falling into a pit of despair. Victor won't let him try, won't let him do or say anything, yet it feels like every minute that he spends in the boy's presence deepens his utter failure to console, to make things better.

Mrs Causton clears away their plates. "Give him time, Mister Holmes."

"Not _mister_ ; that's my brother. I'm Sherlock."

"Sherlock..." She rolls the unfamiliar word around her mouth. "Yes, grief should eliminate such barriers at times like these. Mister Trevor was a good employer, but he never allowed familiarity with himself. He didn't mind about us being on first names with Victor; poor little motherless tyke needed a woman's touch at times."

Sherlock tries to grasp what she is implying. Is Victor being impervious to Sherlock's awkward attempts to console him because he is a male?

"He's a good lad; this has got to be hell for him. I don't really understand why Mister Trevor would leave him with nothing, but it's not my place to speak ill of the dead." Mrs Causton shakes her head.

Sherlock doesn't find it difficult at all to criticise the deceased. Why should death liberate them from responsibility over their actions? If anything, the dead should be given their due judgment, since they often left their messes for the living to clean up.

"Maybe he's just not ready to talk about it," Mrs Causton suggests.

Victor has been talking about his father's death with lots of people on the phone today and with people such as the Caustons. Sherlock is the only one he won't say a single word to about the man, as though the things Sherlock is saying about Jack Trevor are somehow malicious even if they are likely to be true. There's also the fact that what little Victor has said to him is too saturated with grief and mis-placed guilt that what had happened at Saxon Street is to be blamed for his death, which is patently ridiculous. It may have contributed to the man's fear and anger, but clearly the grim messenger of a woman and the email from Peter had been the trigger for what had happened.

Given how wrong Victor is about the causes of his dad's death and how angry he seems as Sherlock for everything connected to it, is he now deciding that their whole relationship is _wrong?_

This deduction thrusts a spear of panic into Sherlock, and he gets up to find Victor.

He needs to know the truth.

In the library, they exchange their first words in hours.

"Do you want me to go back to Cambridge? Or stay here?" Sherlock asks, hands shoved into trouser pockets.

"Whatever you want. It doesn't matter to me."

For reasons which he can neither understand or control, Sherlock's eyes fill with tears and they spill over his lashes.

Victor sees it, and scowls. "This isn't about _you._ Or _us_ , for that matter." Then he leans forward in the chair and grabs Sherlock's wrist, a little more roughly than necessary. "Just––just let me get my head around all this. Just stop––" The plea seems to be loaded with emotions, barely held in check. Sherlock can't even begin to decipher them all, but he's certain that the anger is still simmering there, dormant but ready to burst back into life. It frightens him.

Sherlock swipes at his eyes with his free hand. "I don't know what to do. I want to make things better but that's ridiculous; I have no idea how to do that when you won't tell me what you need from me."

Victor pulls Sherlock closer to the chair, and then downwards, until he is kneeling in front of it. Once there, the boy's big arms envelope Sherlock in a hug, which he tentatively returns. Victor buries his nose in his dark curls and murmurs, "Just this. That's all. Don't talk, don't try to solve it like it is some sort of puzzle or experiment. You can't bring him back."

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

On Saturday morning Sherlock flings away the duvet at seven thirty. Anxiety had kept him tossing and turning all night, and he can no longer tolerate being in bed. He's in the same guest bedroom Jack had put him in. _Ridiculous_. He and Victor could easily be sleeping in the same room. The fact that they are not has been worrying him deeply.

Sherlock goes to the study to use the phone on Jack Trevor's desk, but when he picks up the landline, he realises that Victor is already awake and using it. Replacing the receiver very carefully, he digs out his mobile from the back pocket of his jeans, tapping in Peter Spencer's number. He doesn't need to check it against what Causton had shown him in the address book; he remembers it by heart— eidetic memory. Mycroft will no doubt learn about who he is calling. He can only hope that the nosy busybody isn't able to listen in. In theory, a phone tap needs a court order, but when has the law ever stopped his brother?

" _The number you are ringing is…no longer in service."_

Sherlock sighs at the recorded female voice, and keys in another number on his mobile.

" _Directory Enquiries, which name?"_

He's relieved to have reached a real human being, even if she sounds bored out of her mind.

"I already know the name and number; it's Peter Spencer, 01590—557 7440."

"Do you wish me to connect you? Is this a collect call?" There is the barest trace of interest now in the operator's voice.

"No. The recording says the number is no longer in service. I need to know when it was cut off."

Boredom returns; "Sorry, we are unable to provide information about account holders. Is there any other service you require?"

"Why? I need to know when the phone was cut off; you have that information on the system somewhere."

"Data protection, sir. We are unable to give any such information to the general public, not even the address of the account holder."

"Then you are useless. Let me speak to your supervisor."

Instead of obliging, the call is cut off, making him groan inwardly.

Sherlock is well acquainted with the Data Protection Act of 1998, which entered into force in March of 2000. He'd gone to the law faculty library to see if there was anything he could use to stop Mycroft's surveillance of his computer use, and any and all snooping his minions might do in his paper files. Unfortunately, the provisions of Section 28 allow the security services to do whatever they want, because ' _the processing for the purpose of safeguarding national security is exempt_ '. Sherlock might have been able to argue the case when it was still a private investigator doing the snooping, but now that he's being granted protection as Mycroft's family member, the Security & Intelligence Liaison Service would just wave a badge and his complaint would be ignored by the Data Commissioner.

Actually, that train of thought suggests another way of approaching the problem. He goes into the study to see if the landline is free yet, but as soon as he picks up the phone, he can once again hear Victor's voice, so he very carefully sets the receiver back in its cradle.

He just has to hope that the S&ILS aren't actually recording his mobile phone conversations.

" _Directory Enquiries, which name_?"

He is relieved to hear the voice of a different operator. "This is Detective Sergeant…" a tiny scramble for a first name comes up blank, so he makes one up, "Graham Lestrade from the Metropolitan Police. I need some information for a homicide enquiry."

 _It's only fair._ Should anyone check, at least the name belongs to a real person who works at the Met. Sherlock remembers him as the man who brought him back into the clutches of his brother*. This little misuse of his persona is a bit of reparation for that betrayal.

The disguise earns him an important piece of data: Peter Spencer closed his account with BT on the day after he'd sent Jack Trevor the message to flee for his life. He'd paid his bill by credit card over the phone, the number of which the BT manager obligingly provides. Sherlock's next call is to Barclaycard, and this time he claims to be a retailer who's worried about a suspicious transaction.

This yields another crucial piece of proof: "Oh, yes! Deny that transaction because the card was cancelled two days ago." It, too, had been paid in full before cancellation.

A picture is beginning to form in his head, but Sherlock knows that it's becoming too big, with too many variables and unanswered questions still. Chemistry is so much neater, with its formulae and atomic rules. He needs to visualise the data, if he is going to be able to explain it to a disbelieving Victor.

Scrambling around the desk, he starts opening drawers, looking for paper, tape and marker pens.

oOoOoOoOoOoO

Victor spends all Saturday morning on the phone, using the extension in the library because he can't face his father's study; too many ghosts in there. He can't even look in without instantly remembering the sight of Jack Trevor there, laughing on the phone as he was buttering up a business associate or typing with two fingers on the computer with a frown; he never got all that savvy with modern technology. No wonder he had been dismissive of genetics as a business. Now, Victor will never get to prove to him the viability of his plans.

 _Their_ plans.

Another reason to avoid the study is that Sherlock has taken up residence there, and Victor doesn't want to talk to him right now. The boy is hell bent on derailing Victor from all the family duties he must sort out, to chase some tangent that won't fix anything. Contesting the will would be the only thing that could come out of Sherlock's frighteningly single-minded crusade, but it seems like a very long shot, and Victor barely even has the energy to get out of bed, let alone investigate a crime that may have happened decades ago.

He'd told the Caustons that he'd be spending the morning on the phone and to leave him to it. Their contractual obligations had ended with his dad's death but Victor is grateful that they have decided to come to work this morning like every morning before that. If it were just him and Sherlock in the house, he'd fall to pieces. Even thanking Sharon for breakfast had broken his voice and brought back the tears. He had said nothing to Sherlock this morning, because he has no idea what to say to him.

Victor's first call had been to the hospital to find out what he is supposed to do next about his father. The hospital would issue the death certificate on Monday, which he would need to file with the Norwich Country Council Registrar within five days.

"The remains can be collected once that's done," the Mortuary assistant had told him.

 _Remains._ Isn't Victor the one who remains here, left destitute and aimless?

The call to the solicitors came next. After being put through to Joseph Peterson, the Foster's partner who handles both AFE and family business, Victor had passed on the news about his father's death. While expressing sorrow for his loss, the man had been more than useless. Not only did he refuse to pass on details of the new beneficiary of Jack Trevor's will, the man told him that the condition of the new will was that the name of the beneficiary could only be disclosed to a third party if that beneficiary agreed. The arrogant bastard had the gall then to advise Victor to get his own solicitor, as the firm could no longer act for him. As their firm is the named executor of the Trevor estate, further contact with Victor would be a conflict of interest.

Totally pissed off at that, Victor's next stop had been to telephone two funeral directors in Norwich to see which of them could pick up the body and arrange things, plus a rough estimate of costs. After listening to them, he begins to realise just what an event this is going to be. He hasn't been to many funerals in his life, since they had so few relatives. His father had used such events amongst his contacts to work the church, making the right noises to the right people, so he'd be seen as a pillar of the establishment. Victor decides that there's going to be a funeral service followed by a cremation, followed by an internment of the ashes at the Colton village graveyard.

He calls the vicar of St Andrew's church, who says he is sorry to hear the news, telling Victor that it will come as a shock for everyone in the village and the company. The vicar then points out that St Andrews is pretty small, only seating a hundred in the congregation, so Victor might want to consider a memorial service in a larger church, maybe in Norwich. Victor decides against that idea, saying he wants it to be local. He doesn't confess that he's wondering how many of the hundreds of people that Jack Trevor had cultivated over his life in East Anglia would bother actually to turn out for his funeral. Jack Trevor had business acquaintances, employees and neighbours but barely any close friends.

Another hitch with a funeral is that, without any legal access to Jack's bank accounts, Victor has no idea how to pay for the costs. All he can assume is that he will have to send the bills to Fosters, and they will pay them from the estate.

Causton brings him a tray with a sandwich for lunch. As he picks up the sandwich and takes a bite, he keeps wrestling with too many difficult decisions. If he does tell the hospital about Sherlock's hare-brained idea that Jack had been poisoned either by another person or through suicide, the police will get involved; he's watched enough TV shows to know that an autopsy would have to be performed in that case. The idea of his father's body being cut up makes Victor throw down the sandwich, appetite ruined. If there is an investigation, the body won't be released. A death certificate might be delayed, but he'd been told he had to register it within five days. It would mean yet another call to make to find out how to deal with the certificate in the case of a police investigation.

Everything would just become so _complicated._

There is a soft knock at the door. "Come in?"

Causton pokes his head around the door and says gently, "I'm sorry to interrupt, but I think you need to come see this."

Curious, he follows the family retainer into his dad's study.

The first thing he sees is two chairs, facing with their backs to the desk, which looks very odd to him. When he steps around the door, he can see Sherlock standing in the corner, contemplating the wall.

Following his line of sight, Victor is stunned to see that the painting that normally hangs on that wall has been removed. In its place is a messy collage of bits of paper, post-it notes and computer printouts.

"What's going on?"

"Precisely what I am trying to find out." Sherlock takes one of his steepled hands from under his chin and gestures at the wall. " _THIS_ is going on. And I need more data so do sit down, the two of you."

He points at the chairs. Causton, who had followed Victor into the room, takes the chair nearest the door. Slowly, Victor settles into the other one. "Sherlock, I don't really have time for this; I told you there are lots of arrangements that need to be made." He doubts Sherlock has ever had to arrange a funeral; he knows that Sherlock's both parents had died when he was underage. He assumes that Mycroft Holmes had taken care of all the practicalities.

"None of them are as important as this," Sherlock insists. "And, you may want to re-think the order and procedure of some of them, once we understand more."

Victor takes a deep breath. How can he deal with this now? How many times does Victor have to tell him to leave well enough alone? _Christ_. The sight of Sherlock taking over a space that had been so very Jack Trevor makes Victor highly uncomfortable.

 _He just can't help himself, can he?_

Before Victor can try to find the words to stop him, Sherlock is off and running: "We can start with what we do know, identify what is missing, what questions need answering and then we will have a plan of action."

"Sherlock…" Victor tries to get a word in edgewise.

It earns him a glare. "Wait—I know what you said, but just _listen_ before you make a judgment. There is new data you haven't seen yet."

Sherlock hands Causton a pad of lined paper and a pen. "You took dictation from Jack Trevor; I've seen it in the files."

Victor has rarely seen Jason Causton surprised, but he is now. "Yes, but how did you know it was me?"

"It's obvious he trusted you." Sherlock then instructs him: "Make a table with two columns. Title one of the columns _Questions_ and the second one _Action plan."_

Next, he thrusts two pads of post-it notes into Victor's lap and hands him a black marker. "Write down what I tell you to write."

"Sherlock…" Victor pleads again, "I have things to do. People to call." A hard edge is creeping into his tone, but he's really at the edge of his patience Hadn't Sherlock just asked him what Victor wants him to do? How could he have interpreted the answer so completely wrong?

"It can all wait, until you know who you really _should_ be calling and what questions you should be asking of them." Turning to the wall, Sherlock points to a pink post-it note with the date _29th April_ and a question mark. "Let's start with the time-line. Causton, you said that the mystery woman appeared a fortnight after Easter. But, clearly that wasn't the first time Jack Trevor had been contacted by someone associated with this person or what she represented."

Victor will admit to being puzzled, but the disappointment over Sherlock behaving like this hasn't waned. If anything, it has evolved into annoyance. Somewhat belligerently, he asks "Why?"

Sherlock stares at him for a moment and then snorts in derision. "It's obvious, because he put in a new security system, with CCTV cameras and checked his guns. He was clearly _expecting_ trouble. That story he spun about gypsies was ridiculous; he fainted after I raised the issue of his Maori tattoo and that can hardly be connected to some vagrants moving through these parts. So, it is logical to connect the three: the visitor, the skip-coded message, and the tattoo. Put together, it means that sometime between Christmas and Easter, something threatening was sent to your father, something which made him take precautions."

Pointing his index finger at the butler, Sherlock instructs, "Write down in the questions column, _initial contact?_ " He turns back to the wall and again taps the _29th April_ post-it. "Mystery woman shows up. You said New Zealander from her accent; could she have been from Australia? Sometimes, British people have trouble separating the two."

Causton shakes his head. "I'm sure at some point that she said she was a Kiwi. She was here for ten days; it was bound to come up in conversation."

"You should then write _Kiwi_ down on a post-it. Do keep up." Sherlock waggles a marker at Victor. "We need a physical description—or, better still, a photo. Put that in the action column: call the security company that runs the CCTV service and see how long they keep their recordings. It's been almost a month, but they might still have footage. If so, request a screenshot of her. Don't tell him the account holder is dead, otherwise they might refuse. Just say that you're acting on his behalf."

 _Account holder_ , Victor repeats in his head _._ Sherlock is treating his dad like nothing but a puzzle piece.

While he's scribbling down notes, Causton describes the woman as: "A bit taller than my missis".

Sherlock writes _5'7"_ on a post-it and slaps it on the wall, next to the pink one sporting the words _20-25 yrs?_ This is followed by more notes— _light brown, shoulder-length hair, blue eyes_ —as the butler continues his description.

Victor is writing as fast as he can, and Sherlock starts stacking them up in a cluster on the wall.

"Keep going," Sherlock prompts the butler.

Looking puzzled, Causton raises an eyebrow.

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "What was she wearing? Dress or trousers? Coat? Old? New? Fashionable? Expensive? Back-packer? Shoes or walking boots? Come-on, she didn't walk in naked!"

While Victor scrambles to put it on the notes and Sherlock starts putting them on the wall, the butler takes a breath and then answers: "Short plaid skirt, black polo neck sweater, smart cloth coat, expensive handbag, good court heels _._ "

"That sounds better. You said she stayed for ten days. What sort of luggage did she have with her?"

"She didn't have any when she showed up here the first time; a case was delivered by a taxi that came that night; I remember because we'd gotten back from Cromer in time to cook them supper and I had to open the gates for the taxi when it came."

Sherlock claps his hands together with a smile. "Perfect! Taxi company?"

Victor is finding it hard to keep up with the conversation. He's exhausted, whereas Sherlock sounds like he's having _fun_.

The butler shakes his head. "I didn't see in the dark. Not the local man from Barford; I'd have recognised his car."

"Any ideas about how she got the new code for the gates?" Sherlock's question seems to surprise Causton who glances over at Victor.

Victor shrugs, tapping his pen against the pad.

"Come on, Victor!" Sherlock presses, "You had to get us buzzed in before Easter when the numbers you tried didn't open the gates. It's further evidence that whatever spooked your dad can't have happened long before Easter; otherwise it would have occurred to him to give you the new code. Causton said the woman rang the doorbell, standing on the front porch. So, how did she walk in through the locked gates? Ergo, she must have got the code somehow, unless she was a ninja able to scale a six foot brick wall wearing a short skirt and look none the worse for it. Who knows the code?" This question is fired at the butler.

"The cleaners, the pool people, the gardener from the village. The postman…."

"…Any one of which might have passed it on without much thought to a third party."

"Why would they do that?" Victor is scandalised at the thought of his father being put at risk by people he trusted.

Sherlock snorts. "It's laughably easy. People trip over themselves trying to be helpful if you present them with a plausible story: a parcel that needs delivery, a code given to them and then lost. You'd be surprised how easy it is to talk your way in somewhere."

Victor wonders how Sherlock knows these things. When he talks about this sort of thing, it makes him wonder about what that private detective had said about Sherlock spending time living rough on the streets of London. _He'd make a frightening criminal_.

Sherlock has clasped his hands behind his back and is pacing in front of the wall he has plastered with his notes. "Write this down in the action column: _check local taxi companies_. We need to know if she or her luggage came from a hotel in Norwich, because if it did then they might have her name when she registered as a guest. With a name, we can find out who she is. Unless she used an alias. Possible."

While the butler is scribbling on his pad, Sherlock moves along the wall to another sheet that is taped up: _Peter Spencer._ Above it is the printed email with every fifth word highlighted in yellow. "While you were busy wasting time this morning, I discovered that Simon's father is not answering his phone down in Littleton. In fact, he's cancelled the phone line and also his credit cards—on the day after he emailed your father warning him to flee."

This news makes Victor look up in surprise. "Why would he do that?"

"I don't have that data, but you know a man who just might be able to tell us. We're going to call your cousin Simon. Do it on the landline here because then we can put it on speaker phone and all hear what he has to say."

Causton is at the Rolodex in a flash, pulling out a card. "Filed under the bank's name, but it's got his mobile on it." He starts dialling.

On the third ring, the call connects. "Simon Spencer speaking."

Sherlock beats Victor to it. "Hi, Simon. This is Sherlock Holmes. Remember me from the weekend when I came down to London with your cousin Victor?"

"Sure, of course I do. What's up?"

Sherlock sees no point in wasting time on ridiculous social pleasantries. "Bad news; Jack Trevor died yesterday." Before Simon can react, Sherlock pushes on: "I was trying to call your father to pass on the news, but it turns out he's cancelled his phone line and his credit cards, too. Do you know why?"

"Buggering hell. That's awful news. How's Victor taking it?"

Sherlock rolls his eyes at Simon's evasion.

Victor speaks up. "I'm here, Simon; you're on speaker. Yeah, it's pretty shitty. Sherlock thinks that something…" He can't, just _can't_ say the words. Sherlock is so hell bent on this that maybe it's best to just get this call over with; maybe it'll give them proof that the theory is wrong. Maybe, just _maybe_ , that would make Sherlock give up.

As Victor pauses, Sherlock walks closer to the phone and announces: "Jack's death was probably suicide, possibly murder. And, he got an email from your father the day before he died, warning him to flee because someone had discovered their crime and was bent on revenge."

There is a long pause, enough to make Victor wonder if they'd lost the connection.

Finally, Simon's voice comes on at the other end: "Well, that just takes the biscuit. Let me tell you, Victor; something weird is definitely going on. You're right. Dad phoned me on Thursday to say that he was disappearing, made me swear I wouldn't tell anyone but it can't be helped now that you lot already know it. That's the word he used— _disappearing_. He's put the house on the market, sold off all his investments, oh, and by the way, he's disinherited me. Someone I don't know, and will never know according to Dad, is the beneficiary. He was blubbering down the line at me—never heard him like that before—saying how sorry he was and how the only thing he could do for me was not cancel the life insurance policy that's supposed to come to me."

The three of them in the study can hear Simon take a deep breath and then give a little laugh. "I thought he was drunk, to be honest, and told him to stop taking the piss. But, he swore it was for my own good. He said he was going to take the boat out—he's got a sixteen-footer down at Lymington— and do a Maxwell*, so I'd at least get that policy pay-out. Told me to get him declared dead as soon as I could, since it takes time. Well, you can imagine my reaction; at that point I couldn't chalk it up to some fucked-up joke anymore. I got in the car and drove down to Littleton as fast as I could."

"I'm in the car now, parked at the quayside of the marina. When I got to the house, it was locked up and there's a goddamned for sale sign on the front fence. According to the harbour master, he left on Thursday night. I told him to alert the coast guard to try and find the boat but he was understandably reluctant because there's nothing illegal about a boat owner taking their property out for a swing. I told him to call the coast guard to find the damned thing before anything bad happens."

This is the exact opposite of what Victor had hoped. Something is—was—going on, but he can't start worrying about Peter Spencer. That's Simon's trouble.

Sherlock isn't on a wild-goose chase, after all. But, it still won't bring Victor's dad back. He sinks his head into his hands. "I don't want to believe it. I just don't."

"You and me both, Cuz," Simon says, tone haunted.

Simon must be worried sick and Victor can empathise with the feeling so well that his stomach twists into knots.

Sherlock intervenes again. "Did he say anything about a woman? A New Zealander coming to visit him? She was here with Jack Trevor, and we think she made him do the same thing—disinherit Victor and make herself the beneficiary."

"No, he didn't mention a visitor. Mind you, I've been away in New York a lot over the past couple of months, so I don't know what went on down in Hampshire. Dad and I weren't exactly close."

"Did your father live alone? Any women in his life? Staff we could talk to?"

 _Who's we?_ Victor wonders. He is _not_ going to start interviewing people he's never even met, let alone going to Peter Spencer's house to play detective. He suspects that's exactly what Sherlock will want him to do.

"Alone. He swore he'd never marry again. The divorce was pretty acrimonious, what little he's told me about it. That's why he got custody and could take me with him when he emigrated. He never even looked at another woman while I was growing up. He said he liked his privacy, which is why he retired out there at Littleton; it's on the outskirts of Winchester and people in the village weren't nosey the way they are in Colton. Sometimes it felt like he went a bit overboard with how carefully he kept to himself. Fucking hell, Vic; all this is just _crazy_. I told Dad that if he wanted to disinherit me, he could; he could give his money away to charity for all I cared; I don't need it. But, you're still at uni. Jack's really left you out in the cold?"

Victor can only mumble, "Yeah. Seems like it."

"What a mess. Dad wouldn't say why he wanted to disappear. I mean, if he'd committed a crime or something and was trying to run away, I'd get it. But Jack? _Killing_ _himself_? That just doesn't fit with what I know about him. What the hell is going on?"

Sherlock replies, "That is exactly what we are trying to determine, Mister Spencer. Right now, you need to get the Hampshire police involved. If both Peter Spencer and Jack Trevor are the victims of some form of blackmail and extortion to force them both into changing their wills, then those wills were extracted under duress and can be ruled invalid. Contesting Jack Trevor's will in particular is a matter of utmost urgency."

There is an incredulous laugh from the other end of the phone line. "Blackmail? Who would do such a thing? And what on earth would ever make either my dad or Jack give in like that? Just throw in the towel and give away everything they've ever built in this country? It makes no bloody sense."

"That is also something we are exploring at this end. What happened back in Australia or New Zealand, and when. Then comes the question of who might have been involved. The _why_ will only become clearer when we know the answers to those questions."

"Vic, you okay? This must be just horrendous."

"I've got the Caustons here, you remember them."

"Sure."

Victor catches a sudden flicker of disappointment on Sherlock's features, and hastens to add: "And I've got Sherlock, too. As you can tell, he's helping me work out what needs to be done. Stay in touch, cousin. If you find out where your dad is, give us a call, please. I hope to God the coast guard find him before it is too late."

"Yeah, I'll keep you up to date. And the same at your end. Anything you uncover, please pass it onto me. I'm as much in the dark as you, I swear."

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

Over a Sunday breakfast, Sherlock resumes his lobbying. "You need to call the police, Victor, _now_. If we can get the police to investigate this as a possible homicide, or a suicide following extortion and blackmail—which I think might get classified as a homicide in its own right—then you can contest the will. In court, the solicitor will be forced to disclose the identity of the beneficiary. If it's the same name as Peter Spencer's will, then we can solve this."

Victor had struggled with this all night after retiring to his childhood bedroom, trying to decide what he should do. A big part of him just wants to put this nightmare behind him, to walk away from Colton Grange and never, ever look back.

As if he is reading Victor's mind, Sherlock warns: "Nothing will happen quickly, and that's something you need to consider because it's not just about you. As long as the will can't be executed, the Caustons won't be forced to leave Colton Grange in a hurry; at their age, they need time to plan their future. When it comes to us, just think of it as a sort of combination of Plan B and C. I can still get Mycroft to release the money we need to get through the summer and then to get you into business school. If the court case about the will goes our way, then you can pay it back."

Victor groans, "Contesting a will could take months, even years." He doesn't want to even try to imagine the solicitor bills.

That reminds him that he needs to find one. Yet another chore for which he doesn't currently have the fortitude.

"Better that than giving in to a blackmailer."

"Without access to Dad's bank account, just how do you expect me to fund a lawyer to do this?"

"I'll fund it. Think of it as a loan, because when you win, then you can pay it back."

The worst-case scenario is that Victor will end up in debt to Sherlock without the means to pay it off. What if he fails the exams he's just taken? What if his marks aren't good enough to meet the entrance requirements of the business school? What if their business plans never come to fruition? What if they lose a court case- and the solicitors have to be paid? All this just makes him feel like he's been swept away by a current towards a disaster, and Sherlock seems to be paddling them as hard as he can towards the rapids.

"What if Mycroft refuses?" Victor asks.

"He won't be able to, at least not after the sixth of January 2002. Between now and then, if he says no, you can probably get Simon to carry the cost; in fact, you could have the same lawyer work on both cases."

 _Great. Just great. Now I get to owe a lot of money to both Sherlock_ and _Simon._ Victor tries to poke some more holes into Sherlock's plans when it comes to money and practicality, but he seems to have the answer to every question that is raised.

When they've finished their coffee and Sherlock has disappeared upstairs for a shower, Victor asks Mrs Causton what she thinks he should do.

Sharon Causton is wiping up the breakfast dishes, but turns to look him in the eye. "Victor Trevor. I don't want you to worry about us; me and Jason will cope. We've got family down in Devon if we have to leave here. But, you don't have a family to look after you, so I am much more worried about you. Your father didn't raise you to be a quitter. He built his business and this house because he wanted you to avoid having to live through the deprivations he had when he was growing up. Don't you dare let some criminal swindle him and you out of it. I say you fight this with everything you've got." She nods towards the second floor, where Sherlock had disappeared, "At this rate, that one will work out what really happened before the police does."

Victor's respects Sharon. She's never been the talkative one of the couple, but when she does say something, he's always listened carefully. She's as close to a mother figure as he's ever had.

Finally, he nods. "Okay. What do you think I should do first?"

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

The rest of the morning is spent with PC Charles Paine from the Bowthorpe Police Station. His beat includes Costessey, Barford, Colton and rural areas west of Norwich.

Almost the second he crosses the threshold of Colton Grange, Sherlock clearly wants to despair of the young man's intelligence.

The constable is in his mid-forties, rather portly in build, with a local Norfolk burr in his accent. Slow, methodical, and someone seemingly congenitally incapable of writing more than a half dozen words a minute in his notebook as he takes the details of what Sherlock is telling him. Not even the material on the wall is able to get the man excited enough to call for an inspector to show up. Sherlock has to press him several times to put the mortar, the pestle, and the mug into proper evidence bags.

Eventually even Victor starts to think the officer is fumbling a bit.

Finally, after giving the same answers to repetitive questions Paine is asking, Sherlock's patience gives way and he snaps, "I know that theft of the odd farm implement, a bit of drug abuse or a drunk speeding is probably the limit of your professional experience, but this needs to be brought to the attention of a senior homicide investigator as soon as possible. And your forensic service needs to test these for aconitum—that's spelled _a.c.o.n.i.t.u.m_ —a poison. They won't be able to detect it in the body of Jack Trevor through any standard tests, but make sure that they take blood samples. Maybe, by this time next year, a specific test might exist."

The PC is still dubious. "I'll pass this on to the boys at Bethel. Don't know, seems to be a bit far-fetched."

Two hours after Paine leaves, an investigative team from Norwich's Bethel Station arrives, and the right things finally start to happen. The Investigator is accompanied by a constable who seems more with it. Statements are taken, and the hospital details where Jack's body is are noted.

Victor sits in the conservatory as the swirl of activity takes place around him. He answers the questions asked of him as best he can, but it is Sherlock who seems in his element, anticipating questions even before they are asked and even trying to boss the investigative team around. He points them in the direction of the various questions and actions that Causton had written down last night, and tells them of the possible links with a similar crime that needs to be investigated in Hampshire. Names and contact numbers are passed on: taxi firms, pool companies, the security camera service, solicitor.

The constable at one point starts laughing and tells Sherlock, "You've been watching a lot of crime shows on the telly, haven't you?"

Victor intervenes before Sherlock can tell the young man that he wouldn't have to do this work if the police hadn't started out so incompetently. Victor's already heard this last complaint _ad nauseam_ in the time between when the local constable left and the investigative team arrived. Victor is still trying to come to terms with what has happened over the past few days, but Sherlock's dispassionate recounting of the events and how they may be linked is met first by a slight incredulity which slowly gives way to a sort of grudging respect. By the time they leave, Victor is a little more willing to believe that all this might just turn out the way Sherlock had predicted.

What surprises him the most is that the second police team eventually seem to be taking Sherlock seriously, at least more so than the "PC Plod"—as Sherlock had dubbed Paine.

As soon as the gates close behind the police cars, Sherlock grabs Victor by the hand and leads him back into the study. Looking at the wall, he announces: "We have more work to do."

Victor is just punch drunk with all that has happened, and he digs his heels in. "Can't it wait? I'm shattered."

The look of incomprehension that takes over Sherlock's face would be almost laughable if the situation wasn't so serious. "We can't stop _now_."

"You mean _you_ can't make yourself stop. The police are on the case, Sherlock. They'll get on with it."

"No, they won't. They're only looking into the death and the wills of Jack and Peter. _We_ still need to work on the bits they won't be able to deal with—namely, what happened back in Rotorua twenty-odd years ago, what crime was committed that led the two of them to emigrate, and just who knew about it. Getting the police interested in a recent homicide is easy; I hardly need to tell you that getting someone to investigate an event on the other side of the world decades ago is different. It's not something the local police are going to be willing to even listen to unless they get real evidence about it. We have to find that evidence and hand it over. You saw that today. Why do you think it will be any easier with this information?"

Victor sags against the doorframe. "I'm going to bed. Tomorrow is another day."

oOoOoOoOoOoO

It's the wee hours of the morning and Victor is tossing and turning in bed. He's too worn out to get up and do something, and too worked up to fall asleep. It's annoying in the extreme. Before long, he's at wit's end and pounding his pillow in frustration.

At half-past three he gives up and goes downstairs to fix himself a scotch.

On the way to the decanter in the library, he realises that the light in the study is still on, and he goes in.

Sherlock turns away from the wall to look at him. "If you can't sleep, you can help. Sit here and answer some questions." His face is pale, drawn, with shadows smudging under his eyes, and it worries Victor.

"You should be asleep."

A dismissive flap of a hand, "This needs sorting while it's still fresh in my mind."

"We're both tired and upset––" Maybe saying this out loud would stop Sherlock's manic cerebral spiral. Victor recognises that they should spend some time together, possibly even talk, but this isn't the way. He feels like Sherlock is hiding behind this–––this––whatever this is, because he doesn't quite know what else to do. That he is _doing_ things instead of considering how he _feels_ right now.

Victor isn't quite sure of how _he_ feels. It seems to change minute by minute. At times, he can get on with things only to be in tears and wanting to curl up in bed the next.

"Being upset is no reason to ignore what needs to be done," Sherlock announces.

"Which is what, exactly, at this hour of the morning?"

"I've been thinking…"

Victor snorts. "That's all you do. What you need is sleep, so you can tackle this with a fresh mind in the morning."

"No," Sherlock protests quickly and evasively. "Take a look at this." He points to the wall along the side of the room, opposite the bookcase beside the desk. He's taken down the other painting—an abstract by some Australian painter that his father had commissioned. Victor had not liked it much when it arrived, and been relieved when his father had hung it in the study, a room that Victor rarely entered.

That previously empty section of the wall is now covered in a series of increasingly bizarre post-it notes. On them, Sherlock has scribbled an odd combination of letters, numbers and punctuation marks.

Victor shrugs his incomprehension at Sherlock. "What's all that supposed to be?"

Sherlock glares at Victor before resuming pacing in front of the wall. "I am considering a number of hypotheses about the crime that your father and Peter Spencer might have committed in New Zealand, specifically what could have been undiscovered for twenty or more years, and which they would be so afraid of being exposed that they would disinherit their children, sign over their assets to a stranger, and then take their own lives."

Shocked by having it described in quite such bald terms, Victor sinks down into one of the chairs that are still facing the far wall. "It's not a bloody equation, Sherlock; maybe it's not possible to work this one out since it's been so long."

He suddenly realises that Simon hasn't called back. They won't have found Peter, then.

"Logical thinking can get me closer, at least to the point where we can identify what we need to know to take this further. It's not chemistry, but there are deductions and inferences that are possible even with the limited data we have."

Sherlock gestures to the side wall and its odd hieroglyphics. "Consider the top one. The premise is that your father and his cousin—P and J, respectively— committed a crime so heinous that they emigrated to the UK to avoid exposure. But…" he taps two pink post-it notes and one blue one that branch out from the main line "there are three other interested parties- your mother—that's the GT here, Simon's mother—the ?S, and the six-year old Simon, the SS here. We don't know where they were at the time, but Jack managed to convince his wife Gloria to come with him, while Peter Spencer did not. Do you know Simon's mother's name, by the way?"

"Elizabeth was her full name, but I think Peter called her Betty. It was a pretty horrible divorce apparently, Peter was awarded custody."

Sherlock turns and with a look that reminds Victor of a bird of prey, the boy's gaze intensifies even further. " _Precisely_. And that is _very_ unusual. A divorce court almost always gives priority to a mother's claim. So, Elizabeth was somehow _at fault_ , or simply incapable of looking after a child for one reason or another. If she'd known about a crime committed by her estranged husband, then she would have raised it in court to contest the custody." He uses the marker in his right hand to write an E over the question mark.

He points to the second pink note, the one with the GT on it. "Whereas your mother accompanied your father. This hypothesis suggests that either she did not know about the crime committed by J and P; if she had, then surely she would have been reluctant, or perhaps she was an accessory? The alternative is that your father had some means of compelling her to come with him. Yet, your father's behaviour towards her suggests that there was little genuine affection in the marriage. It is not typical that a devoted husband would take a baby away from his wife and lock the mother up in a lunatic asylum. Causton said Jack never visited her during the three years between your birth and her death. The fact that you were never taken to see her, or told about the circumstances of her illness or death suggests something… _unpleasant_."

Victor is trying to get his tired brain to absorb this line of reasoning. "Unpleasant in what way?"

"Excellent question. Something embarrassing or even threatening to the husband, but something that could be dismissed as the ramblings of a paranoid or delusional woman."

"So?"

Sherlock stops pacing again and rolls his eyes. "What do you mean, ' _so'_?"

"This isn't Victorian England; people don't get _locked up_ anymore in lunatic asylums. Even twenty years ago, she'd have rights."

"Not if she was sectioned as a threat to herself or others. A suicidal mother who is suspected of trying to kill her own child would be denied those rights."

Victor looks stunned. "Are you insinuating that my mother tried to _kill_ me?"

"We have no evidence to say one way or the other. Finding it is going to take a whole summer of trawling through every NHS mental health trust and every private clinic until we find her." He takes a deep breath. "What's more important is finding out why would she have voluntarily agreed to come with your father to England? Was she compelled to do so?"

Victor throws his hands up in surrender. "I don't know. No one will ever know. It was too long ago. Christ, Sherlock, I wasn't even born, wasn't even a glint in my dad's eye."

"Yet, someone _does_ know about the crime: our mystery woman from New Zealand. Who is she? How could she have known about something that happened so long ago if she isn't the same age as the culprits? According to Causton, she's our age. So she must have been told, rather than been a witness herself."

Victor has no idea, so just shrugs.

"Think about it… Who did Peter and Jack leave behind?" Sherlock turns back to the wall, extending a hand and one of his long fingers gently touches the pink note that has the ES on it. "Elizabeth Spencer. Any ideas about her? Is she still alive? Maybe she is the one who was in New Zealand. She could have run away from Peter, leaving him and Simon behind. Abandonment is a valid reason to deny custody."

It may be the middle of the night, but Victor's brain is no longer asleep. "You don't think that she could be the _victim_ of a crime, something that my dad and Peter did together?"

"It's one possibility." Sherlock replaces the cap on the marker. "Not the only one, though it does give us a line of enquiry. She could have been murdered; you and Simon have both said that the divorce happened before they left Australia. It's important that we find out why they divorced, and if she is still alive. "

"Simon's not had any contact with her since they left Australia; I doubt he or even Peter have her current contact info. Why do you think she is important in this?"

"Think about what we do know. Two men perpetrate a crime in New Zealand. They swear to protect each other, and possibly seal it with a tattoo—what else could your dad's reaction have been about?" He grimaces, "I wish I'd had the sense to ask Simon if his father also had a tattoo. That's something you can do tomorrow. And you need to get the police to take a photograph of that tattoo from your father's body; it should prove handy. Someone in Rotorua may be able to recognise the artist who did the original tattoo and we can find out why he left the centre of it open—against all traditional custom—to allow Jack and Peter's initials to be inscribed."

Sherlock taps the pink note again, the one with the ES on it. "If she is alive, then we need to find Elizabeth Spencer in Australia or New Zealand, because she just may be the one to shine a light on what happened. Maybe the mystery woman was sent by her! And, if we find out that Elizabeth is dead, then the circumstances of her death may also prove most illuminating."

He turns to the second line of hieroglyphics. "This one is marginally less interesting. It looks more at the reasons why your father might have wanted to remove the tattoo, and to keep his wife's condition a secret. Possible that Jack had a falling out with Peter over something and that made him regret the tattoo and the promise it implied."

Victor blinks at the wall. Even after hearing the long explanation, it mostly looks like gibberish to him. "All this… it seems like pointless speculation. Does it really matter why he'd want to lie? If mum was properly mentally ill, I can't imagine Dad would want that to be broadcast all over Norfolk. She died only three years after I was born."

Sherlock is poised with his marker pen, over a sticky that says _18.02.1978_. "Do you know how long your father had been in the country before you were born?"

Victor nods, and heads for the filing cabinet. He pulls out a manila envelope and dumps the contents onto the desk: three passports, one Australian and the other two British. "He became a citizen in 1983."

Sherlock snatches the Australian passport and thumbs through it, dashing down dates on the post-it notes as he finds them. "Date of issue: 12 April 1976. Hmmm, then nothing until the trip to Auckland—that's on the 25th of April 1977." He flips a page or two, "Exited a week later, returned to Sydney. Then, a ten-day delay before going onto the UK."

Sherlock's eyes narrow. "Eight months before you were born. So, it is probably that you were conceived in Australia or perhaps even New Zealand. That is very, very interesting."

"Why?"

"Because of something your father let slip. You know, his homophobia was so virulent that for a moment I wondered if perhaps he and Peter were gay and covering it up by being so negative. But if they had been involved like that, then his wife would have used that to justify her getting custody of Simon. So, that led me in a different direction. Do you remember when your father arrived at Saxon Street unannounced and…said what he said?"

Victor hears the tiniest of hesitations. Sherlock must still carry the heavy scars of Jack's verbal abuse.

"He said, ' _I didn't raise you to be like her…'_ It makes me think that maybe the reason he hates homosexuals so much is because his wife was a lesbian."

Shocked by the idea, Victor blurts out, "Why? Why would you think that?"

Sherlock spins around and points at the walls, one hand at the one about Jack's death and the other at his strange hieroglyphs. "Because it's the only thing that could tie these two branches together. When you have eliminated the obvious, then what is left becomes possible. What if _your mother and Elizabeth_ had an affair? Peter Spencer found out about it and divorced his wife, who lost custody as a result. She and your mother then ran away to New Zealand. Two aggrieved husbands follow and catch them. A crime is committed. We don't know what sort—perhaps it was the murder of Elizabeth? Regardless, your mother is dragged back to Sydney and then to the UK, pregnant. Eight months later, you're born, and she is locked away. Depressed by the loss of a lover and traumatised by what happened in New Zealand?"

Sherlock turns away from the walls and takes a step towards Victor. "Maybe that's why he just couldn't forgive you being anything but solely heterosexual, and why he found it so easy to disinherit you. _You're no son of mine,_ he said. That's yet another theory, by the way: perhaps he was right. I suggest you get the police to take enough blood samples and that you run a paternity test as soon as possible."

Victor lowers his weary head into his hands, turning away from those amazingly bright blue eyes to stare at the dull brown carpet on the floor of the study. He feels like the ground is moving beneath his feet. " _Christ_ , Sherlock. Do you have any idea how much damage you're doing? It's like you're hell-bent on turning over everything I thought I knew about myself and telling me I have to hate everyone I ever thought I loved. Who loved me. Who looked after me."

"If your father built his life here on a foundation of lies, then it is important to recognise them for what they are. Once we figure all this out, then you can bury him, once and for all."

Victor doesn't want to have a funeral and then just walk away. Despite how badly his last meetings with his dad had gone, there's still decades of history of the two of them as a family, of Dad making sure he had everything he needed. Maybe he wasn't the cuddliest of parents, but he did try. Victor never doubted that he was loved and wanted. Not all children can say that.

He knows that Sherlock hadn't mourned the loss of a father who had hated him. That means he can't understand what Victor is going through right now.

He groans. "You just don't get it, do you?" He doesn't know how to explain it to Sherlock, how the truth he is after isn't going to fix anything. Maybe one day, he would like to know more about his mother, but not now. Not like this. Not if it threatens to colour every good memory he's had of his dad at a time when he doesn't have the fortitude to be sensible about any of this.

"I'm going to bed." Victor gets to his feet and walks out of the study, without looking back.

* * *

 **Author's note** : *This is covered in the first story, Beginnings, in the Got My Eye On You series. "Do a Maxwell"- media tycoon Robert Maxwell jumped or fell from the back of his yacht near the Canary Islands in November 1991. Eventually, murder was ruled out, but it was never clear whether it could have been an accident or suicide.


	35. Chapter 35

**Chapter 35: Separation**

* * *

"It's your brother." Victor holds out his mobile phone, his surprise evident on his face. "He says you're not answering your phone these days, so he's rung mine."

 _These days_. A vague enough description for Sherlock's current state—that of a limbo, a loose noose around his neck. He doesn't know whether he's headed for heaven or doomed to hell—or maybe just slightly better off, confined to purgatory for a time, forced to atone for the sin of raising suspicions about Jack's death? He is still awaiting final judgement, that's for sure.

The week since the police investigation started has been frustrating beyond all belief. Victor has been blowing hot and cold about the whole process, unable to make up his mind whether to take action the way Sherlock wants to or not. He vacillates violently between sensible determination and broken withdrawal, the latter of which, at its worst, leads to begging Sherlock to somehow call off what has been put it motion—a police investigation into the death of Jack Trevor.

The hand passing over his phone is attached to a person currently undecided about _everything,_ from making life plans to choosing how many pieces of toast to put on his plate in the morning. Things Victor is incapable of having any permanent opinions on include the latest suggestion Sherlock has made, rather unoriginaly dubbed Plan E, for _evidence_.

Reluctantly, Sherlock lifts the phone to his ear, schooling his features into a scowl and annoyance into his tone. "Hello. What do you want?"

"Hello to you, too." Mycroft's calm, superior attitude drips from each word. "Enjoying an extended retreat of domestic bliss with the boyfriend?"

"Don't waste my time. You know what has happened and why I am at Colton Grange. If you don't, then you should fire every one of your surveillance team for gross negligence. Just cut to the chase: to what do I owe the displeasure of your call?"

"Your presence is required in Cambridge."

"Why?"

"A letter from Trinity College to your last known address at Saxon Street went unanswered, so the college rang me. Apparently, you haven't been willing to return their calls either, so I have been at least liberated from taking your reaction to my calls personally. Why are you not answering?"

"I'm _busy._ "

"Yes, like the proverbial little bee, buzzing about annoying people. Did you really expect me to ignore not one but two police investigations that have your name attached to them?"

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "I see you're not too heavily employed either, seeing as you have time to play messenger. What does the college want?"

"You have an appointment tomorrow morning at 9:15 to have a _viva voce_ for the biochemistry examination. Does this imply uncertainty about what you have been calling Plan C? I had understood that remaining at Cambridge next year requires you get a first."

Sherlock recovers quickly from the startling realisation that he had forgotten all about the oral exam. He can't give Mycroft any 'told-you-so' opportunities, so he doesn't admit that it had completely slipped his mind, because getting to the bottom of the Jack Trevor Paradox has been absorbing all of his brain power together with trying to walk through the minefield of Victor's shifting moods. He has clearly not yet learned enough about when to approach and when to stay away; he keeps getting it wrong. The more he tries to help, the more he's met with resignation and withdrawal and _that_ look – the one he's been getting all his life, signalling that he just doesn't understand something, and the other person has given up trying to explain it to him.

"Far be it from you to have _forgotten_ ," Mycroft says pointedly. "You do get so single-minded about mundane things that the big picture slips your mind."

Sherlock bites back a snippy retort. He's been practicing patience lately, if only because the police don't like to be told they are idiots, especially when they are being precisely that. He shouldn't anger Mycroft right now, because as annoying as he is, he's an ally Sherlock needs right now. After all, his access to the trust fund rests with Mycroft.

"It's standard procedure in the Chemistry _tripos_. Unlike the simpleton system at Oxford that you enjoyed, Cambridge firsts are actually difficult. Anyone applying for the Part Three MSci programme has to have an oral exam."

"Then why didn't you reply to their messages? Is this _viva_ not a crucial part of your plan?"

"As I said, I'm busy." Sherlock decides he can turn this intrusion into something useful. "Now that you've done your duty as the cleft stick carrier, there is something I need from you: release ten thousand pounds into my current account with immediate effect, and tell the trust fund managers to plan on releasing the first term tuition fees for the Judge Business School, with effect from mid-August."

"Oh, Lord. Thinking of going on a spending spree? Think again, Sherlock; not on my watch."

"I need my passport, too."

There is pause, then a firm, "No."

"I'm going with Victor to Australia and then New Zealand. Think of it as my summer vacation."

"What part of the word _no_ did you not understand? I am not going to let you fund a terribly expensive and misguided overseas trip for two to poke your nose into prehistoric crimes that may or may not have happened. You have already stirred up enough trouble in Norfolk and Hampshire. If you are truly serious about your so-called Plan C, then you will remain in Cambridge for the summer, working studiously at an internship, and Victor can use those muscles of his to earn his own keep whilst preparing for business school. As busy as you are there is also the matter that the two of you have to be out of the Saxon Street flat in two days. So, you need to pack up your things and re-locate to some horrible little bedsit. If that does not prove to be the test to destruction of any relationship, I don't know what will. Should you both survive the experience until September, then you can ask me again about Trevor's tuition fees."

"Who appointed you God?"

"You are still a minor, Sherlock, and not even you can change the legal age rules on the trust fund."

"I'll sue you."

"No lawyer in the land would take your case. You have merely to wait another eight months and then you will have unfettered access."

"You do realise you are driving me to find funds in…other ways. Which would you prefer, an extortionate interest rate from a loan shark who may resort to violence when I can't pay up? Or, cash raised the way I have done once before? Your choice."

"Whichever you would resort to, the money will do you no good without a passport. That is safe with me, in a place you cannot access. And, don't even think of trying to buy a forgery. As of now, you are on a watch-list and you will be stopped at any exit from the country. Don't waste everyone's time. If you try to leave the country, the Plan C deal is off the table completely."

Sherlock can imagine the smug look on his brother's face, the one he habitually wears when he's putting someone in an impossible position.

"Take what I am offering as the most sensible compromise, Sherlock. I will pay directly to the landlord any deposit you require for a summer rental. Your bank tells me that you are currently at the limits of your authorised overdraft, and I have told them to deny funds rather than let you slip into unauthorised overdraft territory. You will get the usual allowance paid in next month. Bow to the inevitable, brother mine."

Sherlock doesn't answer, ends the call abruptly and wishes that the phone was his so he could slam it against the wall.

Instead, he hands it back to Victor.

"Do I take it that went badly?"

Sherlock huffs in frustration. "He's an idiot."

"I think I can get Simon to loan us the airfare. What's a little bit more on top of the huge pile I am already going to owe him for legal fees?" Victor's tone is bitter.

Sherlock has argued that it's in Simon Spencer's interests as well to help them; after all, this is a family matter for him, too. Thankfully, Spencer has been willing to loan them enough to cover the legal fees.

There's still the one major hurdle that just may wreck their plans. "My fat bastard of a brother says he won't release my passport."

"Why has he got your passport in the first place?"

Sherlock doesn't like Victor's accusatory tone; it seems to signal that he has done something wrong _again_. "I haven't needed it for the past eight years, so it was at Parham. Now he's holding it hostage—and me with it."

Victor is silent for a moment. "I've given this some thought, and I'd just decided that you were right: it's now or never. If we don't travel now, then once term starts there is no way either of us can go. Plan C depends on us both doing well in our studies; your brother's willingness to fund my tuition fees depends on it."

"Willingness is not a word I'd use. Blackmail is more like it."

"Speaking of blackmail, the legal stuff here may never get off the ground, unless we can find evidence about this Gees woman," Victor says needlessly.

Sherlock knows all this. He's the one who has been repeating it to Victor over and over again, trying to break through the veil of shock and irrationality that has shrouded Victor after Jack had died. Maybe the penny is finally dropping, and Victor is getting the message. Sherlock decides a bit of reinforcement is needed. "We have to assemble evidence about the crime; without that, the New Zealand police won't ever open a case as cold as this one. Probate on your father's latest will has to be postponed until the initial investigation into the circumstances of his death is over. If we can delay that further by linking it to an investigation in New Zealand, then it works to our benefit, and Simon's, too. Even if he says he doesn't care about his father's money, he'll at least want a guarantee to get back what he's loaned to us for legal fees. The logic of him investing in a pair of air tickets would have made sense to a banker. If only my brother wasn't such a tin-pot dictator."

They are sitting in the conservatory, which is beginning to feel sub-tropical in the direct sun. Sherlock realises he is sweating, but he can't blame it just on the temperature. Anxiety is spiking about the whole house of cards he's been building. There are so many uncertainties in their plan, the biggest one having to rely on his brother.

"Mycroft really won't release the funds?"

"Not for the trip. He will finance Plan C, but only if we follow it to a T."

"Christ, so many plans have ended up in the rubbish bin, I'm still confused as to which one is which."

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "Plan A was telling your father upfront about your business school application, your decision to not work for AFE because you and I were going to be partners in a new biotech start-up, and about wanting to spend the rest of our life together. Your alternative was Plan B, the drip-feed where only one of these facts would be revealed at a time, and the idea of me being your boyfriend would be left as the very last revelation." Sherlock will never, ever admit to Victor how disappointed he'd been by how adamant Victor had been to delay everything. It had felt as if he'd been ashamed of admitting what finally came out only when confronted by his father in the hall of the Saxon Street flat. Up until Jack died, Sherlock had been almost glad it had all tumbled out like that, as painful as it had been. _Almost_. He's had to admit it to himself that he had feared Victor would never be honest to others about their relationship.

Not that the way it happened really mattered, in the end. Jack was planning on disinheriting his son even before he found out about their relationship; in fact, that's probably what he'd come to Cambridge to tell Victor. Finding out about their relationship had just given him a handy excuse to do what the Mystery Woman had blackmailed him into doing.

Even Victor has realised this. It's the first good thing that has come out from Sherlock's investigation. What Sherlock doesn't understand is why he still behaves so differently towards him. Sharon Causton had told him Victor needs time, but Sherlock doesn't understand why. Time to accept his father's death? The facts are there; why does he need more time? And what does any of that have to do with Sherlock?

Victor is shaking his head in disbelief. "Life is what happens when you're busy making plans."

"Which is why we have to fall back on Plan C! I thought I could finesse Mycroft into releasing enough funds for us to stay in Cambridge together this summer, and now he is willing to back us on that. You could work to build up some funds so the tuition fees loan would be enough to see us through until January. He can't stop us then. "

Victor snorts, "Yeah? Maybe, but all of that ignores what you've put on the wall of Dad's study. At least one suicide or even a suicide pact, a mentally ill mother, a mystery woman from New Zealand and some unknown crime committed decades ago. Oh and throw into that little toxic mix the fact that according to you, the man I have called Dad for all my life may not actually be my biological father, and my mother was a lesbian. My life has become a bad soap opera script."

"Wouldn't you want to know the truth?" How can Victor be so blind about this?

"I call that Plan D for destruction of just about everything I once held as true. Plus, I am going to end up in hock not only to you but Simon, too, because now I've got legal fees to add to the burden of debt I'm already carrying."

"I don't care about the money." Sherlock doesn't understand why taking money from him is any different than Victor living and studying on Jack Trevor's money.

Victor leans back in the chair so he can stare up through the glass roof of the conservatory at the passing clouds. It's a blustery day but sunny, and the summer's heat is starting to build up to a predictable thunderstorm tonight. "That's easy for you to say. _I'm_ the one who's just emptied my bank account to buy a rush DNA test so I can know whether I even have a legal right to inherit if the will is proved to be extorted. So, I think you're right: to prove that blackmail happened, we need to go down under to unearth a crime that's twenty plus years in the making. But, now you're telling me that's not going to happen, because your brother isn't going to fund the trip or let you out of the country. Christ, what a fucking mess."

Sherlock can only agree that it's a depressing summation of the situation, and once again he is distraught that he cannot make things better for Victor. Utterly frantic to come up with something—anything— that will help, Sherlock has tried to do the one thing he should be good at: unraveling a knot so complicated that most people would give up. So far, his failure is destroying any kind of peace of mind that he might have thought their relationship would give either of them. What these awful six weeks since Jack Trevor had surprised them in Cambridge have proven to him is that his happiness is totally bound up with Victor's, and it breaks something in him not to be able to fix this. It's hard to concentrate or sleep or remember things such as the exam, when he feels like Victor's anguish is a constant reminder of his failure. The atmosphere in the house hangs heavy and Sherlock feels awkward every time he opens his mouth.

Biting his bottom lip, he tries to offer what he hopes is some consolation: "Mycroft is being horrible, but it's not the end of our plans, just a deferment. We only have to wait until January; once I have access to my fund, then we can do what we want."

Victor snorts, "Name that one Plan F for _failure_. By January, the police investigation in this country might well be closed due to lack of evidence, especially if Peter Spencer hasn't been found. That leaves us only with a bloody expensive civil suit to try to get the wills overturned. Without evidence of a crime which created the means of extorting the change, that, too, goes down the toilet. And let's just throw in the other bit, as well, shall we? When I get the DNA test results back tomorrow, what happens if I'm a bastard?"

Victor closes his eyes, as if he can't bear the sight of Sherlock. "Tomorrow I might not even know who the fuck I am and I'm not going to get any answers sitting here in Colton staring at your bloody post-its. So, maybe I should go on my own. I've got a valid passport, and I think Simon would loan me enough for the air ticket. If I find a bit of work out there while I am poking around for answers to all these questions, I should be able to fund a couple of months. Maybe Plan E is for _escape._ "

Victor's words make Sherlock's throat constrict. They had been talking about a trip of three and a half weeks, not several months! Talking about working out there means it isn't just a trip, it's a significant departure from all of their plans.

Victor is nodding to himself. "It makes sense. You stay here and get on with Plan C; I'll go and spend the summer finding what we need to get as evidence."

Victor wants to leave him behind. How is that possible? He must understand that he needs to go, too! If he goes on his own, he won't know what to look for, or how to see the truth of what evidence he might find. If it hadn't been for Sherlock, Victor wouldn't have even _known_ what he is supposed to getting in terms of evidence. Working together, it would have worked. Apart…

Fear is whispering in the back of Sherlock's mind that being separated by eleven and half thousand miles after the way they have behaved towards each other lately is just…too much. It is so horrible an idea that it makes him nauseated. The ' _what if_ ' –scenarios that have been ricocheting around his mind for the past week suddenly resume banging about with a whole new level of loudness.

 _What if_ Victor bungles the evidence gathering because he doesn't grasp the significance of what he might find? _What if_ he decides that he's had enough of Sherlock's deductions, speculations and inferences? Sherlock has been so confused by the situation. He's tried really hard to help, to be the practical one who asks the questions and gets the truth out on the table. Victor and he can't build a life together if these questions are not answered. But, what if the truth is unpalatable or even more upsetting to Victor than _not_ knowing? What if it has already tainted their relationship in some way Sherlock cannot grasp?

Victor sits up and looks at him, "You've turned out to be quite the Pandora. You know who she is?"

Sherlock spouts the facts in a flat monotone. "Greek mythology. The first human woman, created by Hephaestus and Athena, to counter-balance the theft of fire by Prometheus. Her jar contained evils, which were loosed onto the world."

Victor looks puzzled. "Pandora's _box_ , you mean?"

"No, _pot_ or jar. A _pithos_ is a large earthenware container. You think it's a box because of a textural corruption of the word that was made in the sixteenth century, a mistranslation of a jar into a box."

"Yeah, whatever." Victor gives a rueful laugh. "Trust you to argue… The point is that you've unleashed a whole lot of horrible stuff. And, I need to spend some time trying to stuff it back in the box."

"You _can't_ put it back, that's the whole _point_ of the myth," Sherlock protests feebly. "But, Victor, the Greek texts all agree that the one thing left in the jar is hope. You need to remember that."

Victor gets to his feet. "If you're going to have a hope in hell of passing that viva tomorrow, I will drive you to the train station tonight, so you can be sure of making it for nine. The trains out of Norwich are so unreliable that you can't risk leaving in the morning. Your exam is too important. Plan C depends on it."

The exam is the last thing Sherlock cares about right now. First, Victor is considering flying to the other side of the world without him, and now he's made a one-sided decision to send Sherlock back to Cambridge.

"After your exam, you can pack up the flat and get in touch with some rental agencies," Victor adds.

"Come with me," Sherlock pleads. "You said it yourself: sitting here isn't helping. You could start packing while I take care of the exam. We should look at flats together."

Shaking his head, Victor gives a weary stretch of his long arms. "Can't. I've got to go to the lab in Norwich to get those test results, and then I've got my first meeting with the new solicitor."

"After that?" Doesn't Victor care about what sort of a place they'll live in during the summer? Sherlock has never looked at flats. He doesn't know how one goes about doing so, and he sure as hell doesn't want to ask Mycroft for help.

"No, still can't. On Wednesday morning the police had said they will let me see the autopsy report."

"I have to see the autopsy report, too." He's certain Victor won't understand it as well as he will.

Victor doesn't reply but his expression tells Sherlock that he doesn't like the idea. Why? After all, Sherlock had been the one who had realised there was something illegal connected to the cause of death! He can't run the risk of everything falling apart because Victor doesn't understand that report. "Bring it with you when you come to Cambridge. We could look at flats on Wednesday afternoon."

With a laugh laced with a slight hint of hysteria in it, Victor splutters, "That's 48 hours from now. Who the hell knows what life will have thrown up in our faces by then?"

oOoOoOoOoOoO

The sound of the adhesive plastic tape being pulled off the roll, stretched and then slapped onto cardboard boxes makes Sherlock flinch every time. The fact that it is self-inflicted, that he is the one doing it, makes the sensation somehow worse. If he's lucky, it will only be another half dozen or so boxes in this room and then he can take a breather to let his nerves come back to their senses. This afternoon, he'd raided the recycling bins of the nearest Tesco Metro for all the boxes he could carry; he'll need to do another trip tomorrow to finish off.

As a precaution—against what, he's not sure, but then he's rarely sure of anything or anyone these days—he's decided to box up his things separately from Victor's. Each box that gets taped shut is then given a set of initials: VT or SH. He picks up the black marker pen and scrawls SH on the white label he'd put on a box that had once been full of tins of tomatoes. It now contains his CD collection and sheet music.

Inevitably, VT boxes outnumber SH boxes, and so do the suitcases: four for Victor compared to the one and a duffel for Sherlock. Victor's lived at Saxon Street for two years, after all, compared to Sherlock's mere six months. Well, eight, if one counts his time squatting because this flat had been more convenient than his Burrell's Fields room.

Packing up makes him melancholy in the way that's hard to overcome; it's the end of the happy times they've shared here. Change always unsettles him, spikes up his anxiety levels because the unknown creates yet more opportunities for him to make mistakes, mess things up and generally speaking, raises the odds of a crash and burn of any life he's tried to build for himself.

That possibility has been on his mind endlessly for the past two weeks, ever since Jack Trevor died. Or even before that, back at the start of May, when Jack's surprise visit had shredded Victor's hopes of keeping their relationship a secret. Sherlock knows that he is in danger of perseveration, of ruminating thoughts becoming so disabling that he will lose all capacity for executive function. Victor needs him to keep going, is _depending_ on him. He's got to hold on, keep his demons at bay, and do what is necessary.

 _Focus on the concrete and practical_. He angrily shoves regret back into his Mind Palace. The most urgent thing is finishing the packing because the deadline is tomorrow. The landlord had put a note through the letter box while they were in Colton, and there were three messages on the answering machine, each one more insistent than the other. The first had been polite enough; new tenants were coming in the week after their lease ends, and he needed the time to re-paint. The second one was more annoyed. _"Out by Tuesday evening, or you'll lose the deposit."_ The latest one, timed late last night had been almost threatening. _"If you aren't out by Wednesday morning then I will clear the contents and either sell them or donate to charity. In either case, you'll lose the lot. I've taken a look around; be sure to remove that bike rack in the hallway; and I will be deducting something from the deposit because your bikes made a lot of marks on the wall that will need extra work."_

It was enough to make Sherlock do something he loathed doing; he called the man and told him abruptly, "Got your message; we'll be out by your deadline. Goodbye."

On his visit, the landlord had left an inventory for which Sherlock is grateful; it stops him from packing up something that isn't Victor's. Even so, there are things missing: cutlery, two mugs, a lamp. Sherlock hopes that the landlord won't use these breakages to justify keeping most if not all of the deposit.

Not that it matters anymore: Victor won't get it, since the deposit goes back to the name on the lease. Yet another thing that goes to Jack Trevor's estate and the Mystery Woman instead.

Sherlock is keeping an eye on the clock ( _'one wall clock, red, battery powered/living room £29'_ , according to the inventory) which always been four minutes too fast—kept that way by Victor for the ridiculous reason that it meant he wouldn't be late. Every time Sherlock looks at the clock, it reminds him of their subsequent conversation:

" _But, if you know it is four minutes fast, then surely you factor it into your thinking?"_

" _No, Sherlock, I'm not like you. Not all of us remember this stuff all the time."_

He didn't understand Victor's reasoning back then, and he doesn't comprehend it any better, now.

When Victor comes back to the flat tomorrow evening, Sherlock needs to have come up with the words to convince him to stay in Cambridge for the summer. He thinks he's found the solution: use the three and half weeks of Christmas break for their trip to the Antipodes. He should be able to buy both tickets on a credit card, knowing that the bill won't come due to be paid until he is legally able to access his Trust Fund without Mycroft's interference. It's a compromise that should work.

He takes the box into the hallway and adds it to his pile.

 _Victor should have called by now._

Perhaps he's forgotten that he had promised Sherlock that he would? While he'd been facing three gowned academics in the Trinity College interview room, Victor was supposed to have been at the DNA Testing Clinic in Norwich to get the results of his paternity test. What does the silence indicate about the likely results? Would he be more annoyed to discover that Jack Trevor wasn't his biological father, or more irritated that Sherlock had suggested something that didn't turn out to be true? _Damned if I'm right; damned if I'm wrong._

He'd had to put all his worries about that aside to get dressed in his best suit and wearing the ridiculous commoner's gown that all _viva voce_ students are required to wear before taking the seat across from Professor Blay and the second examiner. Sherlock never takes well to strangers, and this one was a rather lacklustre chemical engineering senior lecturer from St Catharine's College. Fortunately, Blay had come straight to the point, confirming that Sherlock would be getting his first. "Your exam results were mostly exemplary, just a tad borderline on one or two questions on the inorganic chemistry paper. What tipped the examiners into awarding a first is your excellent final project report. An extraordinary piece of work for an undergraduate, if I may say so, Holmes. As a result, you've been shortlisted for the BP Prize for the most outstanding performance in Part II Chemistry."

The other examiner had been less congratulatory; he was one of those academics who always had to prove themselves cleverer than their students. He'd tried to pick apart an answer that Sherlock had given on one of the questions. Four sheets of dense chemical formulae and one hand cramp later, Sherlock had demolished the man's arguments and proved his point, if somewhat brutally, that not all Cambridge chemistry lecturers are as competent as Professor Blay.

He'd stopped in at the rental agency on the way back to the flat, changed back into normal clothes and got back to work on the packing. _I can do this._ He is determined to do everything that Victor expects of him. Maybe then he will appreciate Sherlock's company again.

Once each box is taped, initialed and stacked, Sherlock checks his phone again. As much as he wants Victor to call him, he's also waiting for the letting agency to telephone him with the address of the first place he's going to see. The details he picked up at the agent shows this one is the cheapest on offer at £500 a calendar month.

The money matters in a way that Sherlock has never worried about in the past. With the money he will be earning from his summer internship and his housing allowance from Mycroft, there should be enough to house and feed them both. If Victor gets a part-time job, he can save money for business school expenses.

The place Sherlock wants to see this afternoon is not actually a flat, but a double room with an en suite bathroom, in a house shared with three other graduate students. There is a communal kitchen, living room and dining room, and a secure bicycle storage shed in the back garden. Of all the options on the agency's books, this one seems the most logical: it is both the cheapest and the closest one—an eight-minute bike ride or a fifteen-minute walk. It's available now, in the summer, with an option to sign a longer lease that would take them through the next academic year.

It will naturally be a significant step down for Victor, who is accustomed to having his own two-bedroomed flat. Sherlock wouldn't care at all where they lived, so long as Victor is happy. Living together is something he's come to appreciate in ways he would never, ever have predicted, and spending last night on his own in the flat had felt decidedly odd _._ He kept expecting to hear the creak of the floorboards from the upstairs bedroom; the old wood tends to complain about the weight of a second-row forward rugby player. Another noise absent was the gurgle and hiss of the boiler in the airing cupboard under the stairs—a sign of the hot water being on during one of Victor's showers.

Sherlock had started out the night trying to sleep in the upstairs bedroom, but the absence of the bed's normal occupant had been so tangibly painful that eventually he had groaned out loud before remembering that his brother's surveillance bugs were probably still in place, since he'd forgotten to clear them out. Lying there in the dark, Sherlock had buried his face in the pillow next to his own, breathed in the scent of Victor. It was everywhere, the mattress, pillow and sheets were redolent of the unique combination of his sweat, deodorant, soap and shampoo. Not to mention lingering aromas of the last time they'd had sex. The thought might have aroused him to the point of doing something about it, but the idea of _that_ being recorded makes him utterly determined that his first chore of the morning will be to find and rip out every surveillance device that his brother's minions would have planted while they were in Colton.

It had taken Sherlock a little while to get used to the novelty of sharing a bed with someone, given that he'd never experienced it before. Back in February, he'd been unable to sleep at all for their first two nights together due to the overwhelming sensation of being so close to anyone, let alone someone as _big_ as Victor.

At some point on the third night, Victor had half-stirred and just scooped Sherlock up, pulling him into his side so he could put a muscular arm over Sherlock's shoulder. With his entire back, arse and legs in full skin contact with Victor, something in his brain just switched off. _Safe_ and _warm_ overruled every other sensation, and he had the best night of sleep he'd ever had. Such visceral memories make the notion of their current separation more unbearable. Before Victor and he had become lovers, Sherlock had always assumed that his chronic insomnia and disrupted sleep was just _him_ , the way he was wired. Now that he knows differently, he is deeply unsettled and disturbed by the thought of Victor going to Australia on his own.

Eventually, driven mad by the ticking clock on the bedside table, he'd given up and gone downstairs to the single bed in what he still thinks of as _his_ room. Then at five he'd given that up, too, and released his energy by finding four new bugs, lining them up on the doorstep to the garden and smashing each one with a hammer, amused at some poor listener having to hear it.

He misses Victor like a severed limb, and it takes every bit of his willpower not to let that overwhelm him. It's not the sex Sherlock misses (well, not _that_ much); after his father died Victor has been keeping Sherlock at arms' length. What he misses the most are the simpler intimacies: the little touches, the ruffling of his hair, the smile that he can feel as well as see when Victor's mouth is pressed up against his neck. The scent and feel of the man in his arms…the closeness.

He drags a deep breath in and tries to will away the moisture in his eyes. A Mycroftian voice in his head tuts, then mutters _sentimental tosh_.

He still needs to get the bikes down and the brackets removed. Wandering into the kitchen, Sherlock wonders where he might find a screwdriver. Pulling open something that Victor had once called the _junk drawer_ , Sherlock pushes various bits and bobs aside. When his hand falls on a plastic wrist band from Cindy's, something makes him pull it out take a look for a date. Is this something left over from one of Chloe's trips there? Or is it from one of the times when he and Victor had gone clubbing?

 _17.03.02_. Yes, he remembers that Saturday night. Cindy's might be a small club compared to Heaven, but the DJ up that night from London had been spectacular. Both of them had agreed not to act overtly sexual when out in public, preferring the disguise of just two friends out for a good time. Normally, other dancers drifted in and out of their orbits without registering much with Sherlock but, this night had been different. Their dancing had been utterly dangerous; tightrope walking on a knife edge. The music just took them over, and Sherlock had lost his inhibitions and stopped thinking about anything and everything apart from the man who was dancing in front of him. Could this be a memory coloured by the fact that he and Victor had gone home that night utterly high on each other? As soon as the flat door had closed behind them, they had exploded into a frenzy of love-making, not even making it to the bedroom. The sweet release of inhibitions, a surrender to the physical…

His hand makes an involuntary fist around the wrist band, crushing it. It all seems like the distant past, now, so far away it's unreachable. How the hell did they get from that to Sherlock being relegated to the guest bedroom at Colton Grange on this latest visit?

Such facts speak to him, whisper things that he does not want to hear.

Why hasn't Victor called?

oOoOoOoOoOoO

"Oh, I didn't realise that there would be _two_ of you."

The post-graduate student named Mike is showing Sherlock the room in the shared house on Milton Road. He's a short, dark-haired, rather intense mature student.

"Yes. _Two_. Me and Victor Trevor. He's doing an MBA at the Judge Business School, starting in September."

"There's only one bed."

"Not a problem." Sherlock looks at the man, who had said he was doing an in International Relations. Surely he is capable of figuring this out without him having to say it?

" _Oh_." Mike's brows rise.

"Is that a problem?"

"Uh, no… Not with me, anyway. Not sure about Steve and Matt; they'd need to meet you both first, anyway."

"Victor's due back in Cambridge on Wednesday, which is when we have to be out of the flat on Saxon Street. We'll need a quick decision."

"That's what we need, too. James leaving to do research in Guatemala took us all by surprise, and trying to find a tenant this late into the summer is a problem, because we'd don't just want a stop-gap. To be honest, that's what made us say we wanted to meet you. We're looking for a tenant who can move in immediately and commit to the next academic year."

"We can."

"Sounds ideal then. I know this room isn't the biggest space, especially as there are two of you, but if he's doing an MBA, then he'll be out of the house a lot, and you said you practically live at the lab, so having to share the common rooms here won't get all that crowded."

"Sounds good." Regardless of what the other tenants are like, Sherlock is very certain he would want to avoid spending any time in the common areas if he can help it. He does hope the flat's soundproofing is able to contain the noise of what they get up to behind a closed door.

Sherlock's phone vibrates in the zipped back pocket of his cycling shorts. Glancing down at the screen, he announces to Mark, "I need to get this."

"Sure…I'll be in the living room when you're done, then I can show you the cycle shed in the back."

He waits until the man has left the room, shuts the door and thumbs the key to connect the call.

"Victor. Why haven't you called before now? Are you alright?"

There's a half-stifled, incredulous laugh at the other end. "Not sure that's the word I'd use. Remember what I said about what life might throw up on us? Well, the paternity test shows that Dad's not––he wasn't actually my dad. But, according to the new solicitor, that doesn't affect my entitlement to inherit if the current will does get overturned, because Dad's old will named me as the beneficiary."

"Okay."

"No, Sherlock, it's _not_ _okay_. Did Dad even _know_? What the hell was going on between my mother and him? How does this link up to that woman who showed up? Until we get answers, I can't even begin to get it all straight in my head."

Sherlock can hear voices in the background, and then something that sounds like a public announcement. "Are you at the train station? That's brilliant! Once you get here, we can talk about all this, and you can still get back to Norwich in time for the meeting with the police tomorrow afternoon. In fact, if you can help finish up the packing up tonight, then I could come with you when the autopsy report is released. We could put all our things in storage and wouldn't have to hurry with moving in to the new place. I'm just at a potential house share, we'll need to meet the other tenants, and it's small, but I think we can make it work, at least for now."

He's gabbled all this out at a break-neck pace, wanting to show that he's done what Victor had expected him to do. Anticipating questions about the flat, Sherlock barely comprehends Victor's answer:

"I'm at Heathrow, not the train station"

Sherlock's brain stutters offline. "Why?"

"Because Simon's come through. He's got a mate who's willing to pass on his air miles to me _for free_. He's a frequent flyer with China Southern Airways, and they let you pass on your miles to a named person."

"You're at the airport. To do what? To pick up a ticket?"

"No, to _fly._ His points expire tonight at midnight, which is why he agreed when Simon asked him. I get a ticket _and_ the money from Simon that he was going to lend me for the ticket, which I can now use to do what needs to be done once I get there."

"But… It isn't necessary. I've found a way we can go together over the Christmas break, and you don't have to take any money from Simon."

"Christmas? That's six months away. Anything can happen between now and then, and I don't want the solicitor bills to have time to climb higher. I'll go find the answers to all those questions; you just have to sit tight and stick to Plan C. I'll call you when I get to Auckland."

Sherlock is so shocked that he has no idea what to say. Victor _can't_ leave.

He reaches for something, _anything_ to stall him, to make him change his mind. "But…what about the autopsy report? You need to be there tomorrow."

"I told them that you'd be there in my place; what you just told me means that you could just as easily make the appointment. You'll understand it better than I can, anyway. And, you must have already finished all the packing?"

"P…packing?" Sherlock is so stunned that he's losing the capacity to speak in sentences.

"If you run out of time, just sort your own stuff out. I gave Causton my key. He'll drive over the tomorrow morning to finish off my packing. Then he'll take you to the police station at Norwich and then take my stuff back to the Grange. He'll keep it safe until I get back."

 _Back… to Colton? Why?_ Sherlock looks around the room that he'd imagined sharing with Victor. Lamely, he stutters: "But I just told you I've found us a place…good…cheap… j-just a room in a shared house. You need to see it. They need to meet you tomorrow, the other people––the other tenants, I mean."

"No point in me paying for a flat until I get back."

 _Just how long is Victor going to be gone?_ Sherlock doesn't ask the question because any time at all is longer than Sherlock wants. He doesn't ask, because he's afraid of the answer.

Victor is speaking again. "Whatever you find for the summer is fine; I don't know how long I'll be away so just take it for yourself. If they don't like me when I get back, then we can look elsewhere. Might be close enough to term time that we can get something for the whole year."

"But it _is_ for the whole year."

Victor doesn't reply and Sherlock feels as though there's no air left in the room .

 _He's going to be gone all summer._

His mouth dries up and he can't find the saliva to get his tongue to make the right shapes for words.

 _You can't leave me._

On the phone, he can hear another announcement being made in the background.

"Got to go, Sherlock. The gate's just been announced. Bye for now."

The words barely have time to register before Victor has already rung off.

Sherlock stares in amazement at the phone's screen and its message: _call ended._

His mind begins to blank into whiteness, and the last thought as the swirl of fog takes hold is that Victor hadn't even asked him about how his exam had gone.


	36. Chapter 36

**Chapter 36: Descent**

* * *

 **Trigger warning: Self Harm**

* * *

Sherlock can't remember anything about leaving the house on Milton Road. What did he say to that graduate student? The white fog has swallowed up his words, if indeed he had said anything at all. The journey home had been scarcely any better; the only impression he'd had was of very busy traffic, most of which was fast moving, so he'd probably taken Elizabeth Way. There'd been a few hooting car horns at one of the roundabouts and he has a vague recollection of someone shaking a fist.

An otherwise eidetic memory that goes offline; he recognises the symptoms of a state of dissociation, when things just… fall apart. Not quite a meltdown, more a shutdown. Too much to process, yet too little. Overwhelmed, not comprehending. _Cannot execute function._

It is only the opening of the front door of Number Five Saxon Street that drags him back to reality; the familiar sights and scents offer a temporary comfort. Yet, everything is in too sharp a focus; the edges of his vision are like jagged knives, the colours stabbing his eyes. He flings his bike against the wall on the side that has his boxes, noting with some sort of satisfaction that the front tyre leaves on the paint a big black mark, which suddenly balloons in size, distorted and disproportionate, until it seems to fill the whole wall.

When Sherlock's shaking fingers fumble at the clasp of his bike helmet, he rips it off and drops it to clatter on the black and white tiles, flinching violently at the sound. His bike shoes come off next, kicked down the hall to skitter between the lines of boxes.

The boxes marked _VT_ silently mock him. Had it been some deep, instinctive premonition that Victor would want to send his things… _elsewhere_ that had led him to pack their things separately?

It now registers that the speed—and likely also the danger, judging by his fragmented recollections—of the bike journey has brought him out in a sweat, and he is revolted by the smell. Anxiety and fear have added their own undercurrent into the aroma, a sourness that makes him want to retch. Barefoot on the cold tiles, he walks into the kitchen to find water. Grabbing a tumbler from the cupboard over the sink, he slaps the cold water tap on, letting it run before dipping the glass into the stream.

As he throws the water down into his parched throat, out of the corner of his eye he sees the neat piles of plates, bowls, cups and saucers; he'd been counting all of the crockery for the inventory just before he'd left to see the flat. Back then, he'd been full of hope that the new place would be suitable, that Victor would be pleased with it—and therefore him, that the summer would allow the two of them to solidify their relationship. There would be interesting work, cycling, talking, music, clubbing, planning their life together.

 _That was then; this is now_ , he tries to tell himself, but his very being is now reacting to the reality of standing in the empty flat alone.

One phone call, one act of generosity by an unknown colleague of Simon Spencer—that's all it took to destroy the plans they'd made, to deprive him of the right to participate in decision-making, to show him just how little he meant to Victor. Like some mute moron, he'd not said what needed to be said, couldn't find the words to tell Victor that he _needs_ him to stay, that he won't be able to do any of this on his own. Victor being there is the only way in hell he could ever take up residence in a new place, with people he doesn't know.

 _Plan E is for escape._ How has the gravity of Victor's words escaped his notice until now? He'd heard them, memorised them, but how could he have failed to analyse them thoroughly?

Escape _what?_

He should have made it clearer that it's imperative he accompanies Victor to Australia and New Zealand; without Sherlock, he will make an expensive hash of this trip, fail to find what he says he wants to find.

 _Plan E is for escape._

Escape from him. Spending a summer in a cramped room with Sherlock, sharing a bed? Why _wouldn't_ Victor want to run away from that? No more awkward moments at Colton Grange with Victor avoiding him, keeping him out of his bed. In the space of a single phone call, Sherlock has let slip through his fingers his one and only chance of rescuing the one and only intimate relationship of his life. Mycroft is right. He's _useless_ at this sort of thing. He doesn't know what he's done so wrong that Victor wouldn't even try to remedy things, why he doesn't even try to involve Sherlock despite everything he's done to help.

The water is still running into the sink, so he starts to fill the glass again, but it's slippery and it starts to slide out of his grasp. Snatching at it, he misses, and the tumbler crashes into the ceramic sink, shattering just as his hand regains possession.

A moment of surprise is then broken by the sight of red swirling into the water that is going down the plughole. He raises his right hand closer to his eyes to inspect the damage, and then pries out a triangular piece of glass the size of a fifty-pence piece. The slash across his palm blossoms from a line to a gush, and then pain arrives to deride his clumsiness.

Yet another breakage to put on the inventory list.

 _Why am I doing this?_ The only one to benefit from all this pointless counting is the Mystery Woman, the New Zealander who is going to get the deposit money.

The injustice of it all climbs up Sherlock's gullet and he has to lean over the sink to vomit. When the retching stops, he cups his hand to take a bit of water in to rinse the bile out of his mouth.

Throwing up isn't enough of a release, nor is the way the cold water makes his still bleeding palm smart—the pain is a distraction he welcomes. All the other pain he is feeling is too deeply embedded; it's in every cell of his body, a toxic blend of loss, despair and anger. He needs something _more_. In a rage, Sherlock reaches over with his elbow to push one of the piles of white plates off the counter, to smash on the floor in a gloriously loud clatter. The noise is a sorry substitute for the scream he can't seem to voice, and he walks along the counter-top using his left hand to push each of the piles of crockery onto the floor. The sound of china breaking becomes a symphony of atonality, the crash and scatter of broken shards fill up his head and drown out the voices that are telling him how useless he is.

 _'If that does not prove to be the test to destruction of any relationship, I don't know what will._ ' The memory of Mycroft's words makes him gasp. His failure is even more telling than his brother's pronouncement of doom; he and Victor haven't even made it to the point of sharing a room. At the end of the counter, he comes face-to-face with the wall cabinet that has all the glassware in it. Time to add in a soprano voice to this choir of despair. Throwing the door open, he grabs the first glass and throws it with all the force he can muster across the kitchen and into the sliding plate glass windows.

In rapid succession, like a demented human grenade launcher, every one of the glasses follows. The pain of using his injured right hand thrums a percussion of passion. When the cabinet is empty, he slides his back down the cabinet to sit among the broken pieces of china. The physical release has done little to stem the tide of…what? This is more than anger; it is the rage of the dispossessed, an outburst of the bereft. Something important, someone so important to him that _everything_ had changed: everything he's ever hated about himself, everything that people tell him is wrong with him had been pushed aside because he'd been happy. All that is _gone_. If anything at all comes back, it won't be the same.

 _It can never be the same_. He doesn't even know what the deduction is based on, but it must be true. Neither of them can forget what has happened. He'd had one chance to change Victor's mind, and he'd blown it, completely.

 _Why didn't you give me a chance?_

Then again, maybe Victor has given him countless chances already, and he just hadn't realised he'd been on probation. Maybe, if he'd been normal, used to negotiating this sort of relationship, it would never have come to this. _It's my fault._

Despair bubbles up and starts to escape through his eyes. He swipes angrily at the wetness, now ashamed of the wreckage strewn about the floor. He knows it still isn't enough to eradicate the chemical of destruction that has infiltrated every one of the cells in his body. It's simply a biochemical fact:the zona fasciculata of his adrenal cortex is pumping out a steroid compound in the glucocorticoid class of hormones. He _knows_ the biochemistry involved; it had been one of the earliest things he'd investigated.

His system is being flooding with catecholamines, all of them telling his body to fight or flee. But, Victor is the one who has fled, and Sherlock is left behind to fight when there's nothing to fight against except himself.

His stupidity, his social ineptitude, his _failure_. Mycroft was right.

His body craves something to stop the pain, but it's yet another thing that disgusts him. He glances down at the carnage of white china on the floor and spots a particular shard, perfectly shaped for the task he has in mind. All that is missing is the red edge, but he knows just how to remedy that flaw. He gets to work.

oOoOoOoOo

Mycroft examines the face of the man sitting beside him in the car. Charles Baker is keeping his nerves under control, which is a testament, he supposes, to the man's professionalism. Too bad that dedication to duty had not been much in evidence earlier; perhaps the worst of this debacle could have been avoided if it had been. On the other hand, he can hardly blame the officer for events that Mycroft had predicted would happen seven months ago. Still, lessons need to be learned, by all of them. Next time, he will not allow hope to overcome experience, no matter what advice Doctor Cohen deploys.

He keeps his voice calm and collected. "Explain how it could have been so long before he was found?"

Baker licks his lips. Still staring straight ahead rather than at the newly promoted Director of the Security & Intelligence Liaison Service*, he draws a sharp breath and launches into his report.

"One of the surveillance team tracked him to and from the house on Milton Road. He, too, was on a bicycle, but upon leaving that address, the target moved with such speed and reckless disregard for his personal safety that our man was unable to keep pace. He arrived at Saxon Street about a minute or so after the target entered."

Clearing his throat, Baker continues, "As per his usual behaviour, the target had that morning removed all the surveillance equipment we'd planted while he was away in Colton. I take full responsibility for the decision not to try to replace them during the brief time he was viewing the house share on Milton Road."

"Why?"

Mycroft observes Barker's chin rise, in determination. "I was unsure whether there would have been enough time, and I decided that with only a day and a half left in the tenancy, it seemed pointless to re-instate equipment that he would simply rip out again that afternoon. My attention was switching to the complications of getting surveillance inside the house on Milton Road, and whether there would be…um, legal complications involved in recordings of the other residents of the house."

Mycroft shifts his weight, and lets a hand drop from the file he is holding, down to his lap. "Your _decision_ was irresponsible, given what happened."

"Yes sir, in hindsight it was foolish to rely on the phone tracker alone."

Mycroft looks down again at the file. "You did not re-consider the wisdom of that decision, even when phone surveillance indicated a call had been taken from Victor Trevor?"

A single quick shake of the head. "No, sir. Phone communication between Trevor and the target has occurred before without incident; there was nothing to indicate this was any different."

"And you took no further action even after the Heathrow watch-list reported the departure of Mister Trevor on a China Southern Airlines plane bound for Hong Kong?"

"No, sir. I had no reason to suspect that this would create a problem, since your explicit instructions were to prevent the target from leaving. Mister Trevor traveling alone seemed like a satisfactory development in that regard."

"You were quite wrong about that."

"Yes, sir."

A glance out of the window of the Bentley makes Mycroft have to suppress his sense of déjà vu. Once again, he is sitting in the car park of the Addenbrooke Hospital, while inside his brother is being stitched up and being seen to by A&E medical professionals.

"Continue the report."

"At oh nine forty-five this morning, the Colton Grange butler, Jason Causton, arrived at Saxon Street. Causton reversed a Land Rover into the single car parking space alongside the front door of the flat, used a key given to him by Mister Trevor to enter. Seven minutes later, when an ambulance arrived, sirens and lights flashing, the surveillance agent telephoned me and I managed to get on-site before the ambulance left. The photos of the scene are in the file."

Mycroft shuffles a few of the papers aside to reveal several photographic enlargements: the kitchen where he'd had a cooked breakfast and a sensible conversation with Sherlock looked like a bomb had hit it: broken dishes and smashed glasses, bloody footprints and various splashes of blood on the floor among the crockery fragments.

"And you followed the ambulance."

Baker nodded. "And telephoned you. Causton is inside now."

Wearily, Mycroft closes the file and leaves it on the seat. "Wait here."

The familiarity of the Emergency Department is depressing. He wonders if Doctor Summers is going to be on duty. At least this time because the butler had accompanied the ambulance, there was someone available to identify Sherlock.

Once he's made himself known to the receptionist, Mycroft is let into the treatment area where the senior nurse advises him that Sherlock has been cleaned up, stitched up, and is in the middle of a psych consult. The nurse points him down the line of curtained cubicles. "Fourth one along."

He's not even a quarter of the way there before he hears a familiar voice.

"You have no right to keep me here. Just let me sign the self-discharge form and whatever waivers you need." There is determination and a tinge of anger in the statement.

Mycroft can see someone is at the foot of the bed: a tall, thin blonde woman with her hair pulled into a severe ponytail. She taps her clipboard. "Not until you answer my questions."

Mycroft halts, wondering if Sherlock has heard his footsteps; will his brother be more or less willing to cooperate with the psychiatrist if he knows that he is here?

A bored baritone replies: "I pose no danger or risk to others now, nor have I done so in the recent past. There is no evidence of self-neglect, and I am not under the influence of any drugs, other than the antibiotics and the local anaesthetic you have given me. None of the ten items under the Vulnerability section of that form* apply to me. There are no environmental or relapse risks. Only a single box on that entire form has been ticked, and as it no longer applies, I am fit to be released. Feel free to write in the comments section: _patient is rational, regretful, in control and with a management plan already in place."_

Mycroft decides he needs to intervene, so he resumes walking.

"…And here comes the plan himself, having decided to stop skulking in the corridor," Sherlock finishes.

Three other sets of eyes turn towards him, as his brother rolls his upwards to glare at the ceiling. "I suppose eavesdropping must be an occupational hazard with you," Sherlock mutters.

The blonde woman with a medical badge is clearly the psychiatrist; the young man wearing scrubs is obviously an A&E junior doctor, and the late middle-aged male in casual clothes must be the butler, Jason Causton.

The blonde speaks first. "Who are you?"

"Mycroft Holmes, this one's brother and legal guardian."

"For the next six months _only,_ " Sherlock snaps.

She turns back to look at Sherlock again, her eyes narrowing. "Given you seem familiar with this form, then you know I can't do anything until we complete the Self-Harm Assessment section."

He rolls his eyes before reciting in a flat monotone: "Method: Self-injury, Place: 5 Saxon Street. Date of harm: yesterday, whatever day in June that was. Time of harm: seven thirty-five p.m. Premeditated? No. Suicide note? No. Wanted to die at the time of attempt? No. Tried to avoid discovery? No. Alcohol taken within six hours? No."

He gives Mycroft a glare. "And for the record, no, I did not take drugs of any kind. I'm clean, so you can tick that box of substance abuse as _past_ , not now."

She looks up from the clipboard, where she has been ticking the boxes on the form. "Given your knowledge of this form, Mister Holmes, you seem to be a frequent flyer at this little exercise. This hospital has admissions only relating to a dog bite and an assault. Should I have to ask for past medical records to be forwarded?" She aims this question at Mycroft.

"There is no need. As he has said, I am prepared to take responsibility for his recovery. The psychiatrist engaged at various times over the past nine years will… pick up the pieces." Mycroft does not dampen the sarcasm that he knows she will likely detect, but the coded message he is sending to Sherlock is also clear: he's not going to get out of here by pretending nothing has happened.

She sniffs and returns to read from the form: "Given today's incident, I have to probe what happened before. Was the assault back in December related to physical, mental, sexual, verbal, financial abuse or the result of victimisation, exploitation, or domestic violence?" She rattles the lists off with practised ease.

Sherlock answers "No", just as Mycroft says, "Possibly all of the above."

"That's ridiculous!" Sherlock shouts. "And irrelevant. It was ages ago."

Mycroft has to decide quickly whether the other obvious lie needs to be exposed. The risk of relapse section will have made no note of the drug taking in February, because Sherlock has neglected to mention it. However, to correct that will only prolong the tedium of his release, so Mycroft decides to stay quiet. It is information to be discussed in private, and with Doctor Cohen.

"One last section, then. Main Precipitants of Self Harm?"

"Relationship issues." Mycroft answers before Sherlock can get his mouth in gear to formulate something vague.

"Fiancée or spouse? Girlfriend?"

"Boyfriend."

Sherlock snaps, "If we're going for full disclosure, let me see the form."

She turns the clipboard around so he can see it. He reaches out for the pen as he is reading, snapping his fingers when she is slow to deliver it. As soon as it's in his hand, he starts ticking. "Sibling— _YES_ , that's worth _two_ ticks. And, _yes_ for bullying/intimidation, housing problem, legal problem and financial problem, all caused by said sibling's interference."

Her eyebrows rise. "It sounds like the two of you have some issues to resolve when it comes to this alleged treatment plan."

Mycroft gives a rather pained smile. "Indeed, so the sooner you release him into my care, the sooner we can both leave you in peace."

"Will you be taking him back to your home?"

"Yes. In London, where his regular psychiatrist will be promptly available. No need to organise any follow up here in Cambridge."

"And you consent to this, Mister Holmes—being discharged into the care of your brother and with a commitment to return to treatment with your usual team?"

"Yes." Sherlock says it through clenched teeth, and Mycroft deduces that right now he'd agree to pretty much anything just to get out of the hospital.

The psychiatrist gives her colleague a knowing look before scribbling something into the comments section at the end of the twelve-page document.

"Right. That's that. Take care," she says to Sherlock, who simply continues bristling at everyone surrounding his trolley.

oOoOoOoOo

While Sherlock is getting dressed, Mycroft and Causton step outside the cubical and down to the end of the hall.

Once he knows he is out of Sherlock's earshot, Mycroft addresses the butler. "Mister Causton. I need to thank you for your discovery of my brother and your quick thinking. It must have been shocking."

Jason glances back up the hall to the curtained cubical. "Yes, your lordship."

Mycroft registers the deference and recognises the leverage it gives him. First, however, he needs to reassure the man. "No need to stand on ceremony. Although your erstwhile employer Trevor Senior might have had some strange ideas about the aristocracy in Britain, I can assure you that I do not. Was he conscious when you found him?"

"Yes, and he wouldn't let me help; fainted when he tried to stand up. He came around again when the ambulance crew arrived."

"Did he say anything about what had happened?"

"No. All he did say to me, over and over again, is that I was not to tell Victor. I've not had a chance to do so, in any case; he's airborne at the moment, must be somewhere on his way from Hong Kong to Auckland by now."

"Mister Causton, at the risk of repeating what my brother said, I implore you not to tell your former employer's son about this little…incident."

This makes the grey-haired man look up sharply at Mycroft. "Why not? I know he cares a great deal about Sherlock so this will distress him; he would want to know."

"Precisely- distressing news, but there is nothing he can do about it from half a planet away; as he's made his decision to go to the Antipodes, let's not distract him from his task, shall we? After all, the cause of all this is between the two of them, so it should be up to Sherlock to decide what to tell Trevor Junior about this."

Causton looks a bit uncomfortable about that idea, so Mycroft completes the picture: "Your loyalty is commendable, but the Trevor boy has just been bereaved. There is no need to add to his worries. It is in their best interests that they are the ones to manage their communication. While he is away in the Antipodes, my brother will spend his summer trying to sort himself out, as the saying goes. He will be looked after; I shall not let him out of my sight."

"Perhaps you are right. But, Victor asked me to help your brother do things that have to be done _now._ Stuff from the wall."

"The _wall_?"

The butler takes an envelope out of his jacket pocket. "This. It's what Sherlock put together about the whole thing: Jack Trevor, Peter Spencer, the visitor from New Zealand, the presumed suicide pact, everything…"

Mycroft opens the envelope and eyes a roll of film. "Why do you have this with you?"

"Victor took the photos before he left, asked me to get them developed and then forward them to him once he has an address in New Zealand. He's going to use them to work out what to do and who to talk to in Auckland and then Australia. I thought I could do it while I was here in Cambridge, and pick them up before going back to Norwich."

Mycroft taps the envelope. "Allow me to be of assistance; it is in both their best interests. I will have copies made of these and send them back to you in Colton."

He hands the butler a business card. "This has a phone number where I can be reached, should you need to contact me."

Causton is shaking his head. "There are things needing to be done _now_ , sir. I know that the police were expecting Victor to turn up this afternoon to get the autopsy report. He told me that he'd made arrangements for them to accept Sherlock in his place, and I was to drive him to the appointment. I suppose I will have to tell them…"

"Leave that with me, Mister Causton. I can assure you that I will make sure that the report is collected and gets to my brother. I will also send a copy to you to be forwarded on to Mister Trevor once you have an address."

"Well, if you are sure this is the best way to go about it."

"I can assure you that is my sole motivation."

"Then I will go back to the flat and collect Victor's things."

"My people will have cleaned up the mess by now and collected my brother's belongings. Mister Trevor's possessions will be delivered promptly to Colton Grange. There is no need to wait any longer here. As you quite rightly say, you have things to do."

"Very well, sir. Thank you."

Mycroft is grateful for the training and discretion that is inherent in the British butler. By exploiting the man's natural deference in the presence of aristocracy, Mycroft has now got an inside track on Sherlock's bizarre obsession with a crime that happened so long ago and far away. This is something he will have to discuss further with Doctor Cohen.

oOoOoOoOo

 **Two days later**

"He's not spoken a word since we got here."

Mycroft pours a cup of tea for Doctor Cohen and one for himself.

Esther looks up briefly from the medical report. "He was fluent at the Emergency Department."

"Well, that is to be expected. He wanted out of the hospital and knew he had to cooperate. Once in the car, however, he clammed up and hasn't said a word since."

She puts the folder down in her lap long enough to take a sip of the tea. Once the Earl Grey has been swallowed, she gives the smallest of shrugs. "Voluntary mutism is his default mode when he's stressed beyond his abilities to cope emotionally. This is not new," the psychiatrist offers in reassurance.

"It doesn't help us help him."

"Mycroft, will you please sit down?"

He had not realised that he was pacing until this moment. Rather annoyed at being caught out telegraphing his agitation, Mycroft tries to regain his composure. He drops into the upholstered chair opposite hers and decides to look at his mother's favourite painting, the portrait of Louise Vernet, daughter of the artist. Her father Horace had painted her in 1830. His mother had always said that the colour of Mycroft's hair precisely matched hers.

"He hasn't eaten anything either," he complains.

Doctor Cohen sighs. "That, too, is predictable."

"I must say you seem to be willing to downplay the re-emergence of some of his most pathological behaviours. And, what of the self-harm, then? That _is_ new, unless you've neglected to tell me something about his past behaviour." It comes out a bit more waspish than Mycroft would have liked, but he is somewhat affronted by her calm demeanour.

She puts her tea cup down. "Perhaps. Or it might be just another form of self-medication."

He raises his eyebrows, an unspoken question.

"Consider this." She pulls out the photographs of the kitchen's chaos of broken dishes. "This is the equivalent of a meltdown. Only this time, he isn't a child throwing his toys out of the pram. It's a coping mechanism to deal with emotional dysregulation. Destruction, the satisfaction of creating noise, the explosion of physical exertion? It's all part of the process to release tension that he doesn't otherwise have the means to deal with."

"It's not just childish. The cuts on his feet would be bad enough, but slicing himself is worse, far worse."

"Look at it from his point of view. What happens when he's smashed up the place, and he still can't find a way past the emotional pain? In the past, he's turned to drugs. Or, when he was younger, he just dissociated by mentally crawling away from whatever distressed him. There may well be shame in the mix—over what upset him in the first place, his inability to handle it, his self-awareness of his difficulties coping. All this drove him to seek a proactive solution. He did not go back to the drugs, did not resort to the profound levels of dissociation we saw when he was younger. It's a toxic mix, Mycroft, in a situation he's never faced before, and he needed a way out."

"It is exactly what I warned you about, the last time I came to see you. And yet you advised me to let him try, to allow him to engage in this relationship that was bound to end in disaster." Mycroft can hardly restrain his need to throw it in her face.

She smiles, unperturbed. "I was wondering how long it would take you to say, ' _I told you so_ '. We don't _know_ whether the relationship is over; it's not fair to assume the worst. This may just be a hiccup along the way."

Mycroft cannot resist an eye roll. _A hiccup that came close to requiring a blood transfusion._ "You seem to presume Sherlock is capable of addressing relationship difficulties in a manner that would preserve it. Victor Trevor is now eleven thousand miles away. Heaven help them both if Sherlock signs up for a re-match. In a normal, constructive relationship one should not require medical attention on a regular basis; shouldn't the damage done be enough to deter him for good?"

Her face moves through three different expressions in a single moment; only someone as quite as observant as Mycroft would be able to parse them out: surprise, incredulity, and then pity. He is pondering the significance of that last one when she quietly says. "He's _in love._ Can you not accept that?"

"Ridiculous. If this is love, then it is patently unhealthy for him, and he should be stopped for his own good. He is mistaking youthful hormonal lust for something more significant. I warned him that he would not be able to sustain a relationship. The price being exacted from the Trevor boy is too high; it's driven him half way around the planet. No, let me rephrase: the price being exacted from _both_ parties."

She shakes her head, and then starts going through the folder again. Plucking a photo out, she holds it out to Mycroft. "Look at this carefully and tell me what you see."

Mycroft leans forward to take it from her and then examines it. It is a photo from the roll of film that Jason Causton had given him. The last ten shots on that roll had been of the wall, close-ups of the outpourings of Sherlock's increasingly deranged-looking attempt to deduce what had been going on with Jack Trevor. The photo she has handed him had been on the same roll, but it had clearly been taken at some other time. Sherlock is sitting on what looks to be a wooden table. There are windows to his left; a heavy curtain with a tasselled tie-back pulls it away from the leaded glass. Behind him is a print hung on a wall. At a guess, Mycroft would say it had been taken in a public house making a feeble attempt at mock Tudor decor.

"What do you see?"

"Sherlock, in some grotty pub. Wearing a rather dirty sweatshirt with some strange Arabic lettering on it, tatty blue jeans and trainers with laces that are too long." He sniffs. "I suppose that is what passes for student clothing these days. At least it isn't that ghastly cycling gear."

When he looks up at Doctor Cohen, there is _that_ look, again. Why is she expressing pity?

"Tell me how many photos have you ever seen of Sherlock? What's different about this one?"

He frowns. "Sherlock hates having his picture taken. He spoils every attempt. Even his school photos. Every last one of them."

"That is as may be, and it's peripherally connected, but you're still missing the point. Try again."

He looks at the photo. Sherlock has an odd expression on his face, one that is not familiar to Mycroft. "He needs a haircut," he adds rather lamely. "And really shouldn't be sitting on a pub table, even in jeans; God knows what grime and stench of beer must have been getting on his trousers."

She laughs. "Oh, Mycroft. Are you truly that _blind?"_

"What?!"

"Your brother is looking straight into the camera. He's never done that before to my knowledge. In fact, what he's actually doing is ignoring the camera so he can look at the face of the person who is taking the photo. And that has to be Victor. Look at his body language, for God's sake! He's not stiff as a board. Shoulders are relaxed, his hand is not clenched; he's not stimming. And that look; he _loves_ the person who took this photo. And, unless I am incredibly mistaken, the person who could take this photo, who was _allowed_ to do so, was given the privilege because he loves Sherlock right back. Such trust would not have been awarded otherwise."

"How on earth can you impute that emotion to the person who held the camera?"

"Look at it properly. This is a posed photo. Actually, even better, it's _staged_. Almost artistic; it looks like something out of a Vermeer painting. He's managed to get Sherlock to sit in a place where the light will pick up on all the things that Victor likes. See? The light falls on his face softly, highlighting the left side of his face, letting the other side fall into shadow except those amazing cheekbones and his eyes. Sherlock is relaxed enough to accept the staging, yet to be himself instead of play-acting some scowling anti-social loner. That soft smile? It's aimed right at the person with the camera. He's willing to be photographed showing an emotion that is open, and in his case, deeply private. It's just poetry—affection, patience, a hint of vulnerability. Are you really oblivious to how just plain gorgeous your brother is? The person who took this photo appreciates that. How is it that you cannot see the love?"

"That is irrelevant." Annoyed, Mycroft stands up and takes the folder off her lap so he can pluck out another photo. This one is a close-up of what appears to be a thigh, with pale white skin over well-developed muscle. What mars the image is the sight of four neatly incised lines, blood red and angry-looking. "This is what all that emotion has led to, and it is not _gorgeous._ "

She sighs. "I'm not saying it is."

"And, it most certainly is not _love_."

"I'm afraid that isn't for you to decide or define."

He thinks it best not to reply; his anger would bleed into the words and he dislikes succumbing to such pointless displays of sentiment.

Doctor Cohen rises from her seat. "Let me see if he will talk to me."

"Good luck with that."

* * *

 **Author's Notes.** *The story of Mycroft's promotion is covered in the Exfile chapter called "Exorcism".  
*This form is real, and the 12 pages would allow a psychiatrist to have a comprehensive overview of the situation. I was surprised (and a bit relieved) to see the amount of detail that is required. It is reassuring to know that NHS hospitals are taking this sort of care when dealing with mental health issues.


	37. Chapter 37

**Chapter 37: Limbo**

* * *

Sherlock's bedroom is on the top floor of the tall townhouse, and by the time Esther has climbed the stairs, her knees are beginning to make her feel her age. Mycroft had moved into the master bedroom on the middle floor at the back of the house five years ago, after their father had died. He'd also redecorated the main floors, painstakingly removing all evidence of Richard Holmes whilst sprucing up the parts that reflected the taste of the Viscountess of Sherrinford.

Up here, however, not much has been altered in what had once been the children's province. Plain paint rather than expensive wallpaper and polished wooden floors rather than expensive carpeting—a tad utilitarian but practical for two boys. The wood floor means Esther's passage down the hallway will be easily picked up by someone with Sherlock's acuity of hearing.

After a soft knock receives no answer, she opens the door and crosses the threshold, relieved at getting this far. The Holmes parents had removed an ability to lock the door, but Esther knows that Sherlock is more than capable of disabling the handle mechanism to achieve a similar effect. He'd done it before at Harrow, much to the surprise of the Bradby's House Master. Even without a screwdriver, if Sherlock had really wanted to block access now, he could have simply moved one of the heavy pieces of furniture across the door.

In an odd way, this ease of access worries Esther more than an outward show of defiance would have. Is Sherlock now employing dissociation on top of withdrawal? That would pose some formidable challenges for communication.

The scent in the darkened room is barely post-adolescent boy: unwashed body, sweaty trainers, socks discarded, dirty clothes probably loitering somewhere in a corner where they had been dropped. It's a pong once experienced, never forgotten. For someone with such a sensitive nose, this is Sherlock's equivalent of chemical warfare. He's willing to withstand the fug in order to keep others out.

The curtains are drawn, and the light is dim, but as Esther waits for her eyes to adapt to the lower light levels, she takes the time to look around the room. She's been here before, of course. Treating Sherlock on and off since he was ten years old means that she is familiar with all the spaces in the house he frequents.

In some ways, Sherlock has never really seemed at home here, at least not in the way he has always been in his Parham bedroom. There, he'd altered things to suit his needs and interests: shelves for books and his various specimen collections, a chemistry lab bench, walls painted a colour to soothe, limited lighting. Here, the room seems to bear little impact of who he is. Perhaps that is a statement of intent that he is not willing to invest thought or effort in a room he has no intention of voluntarily staying in for any length of time. The only real concession to his sensory issues are the curtains, whose black-out linings dim the morning light that would otherwise be streaming into the room. They are heavier and more modern than anything found in the rest of the house and do not match the decor; that is why it can be assumed they have been put in recently after a request from Sherlock.

There is a mound of crumpled duvet on the double bed, a pillow dumped on the floor. Esther thinks she can see a cloud of errant hair escaping from under the duvet, but it's hard to be sure from where she is. It's only when she walks across the floor to the other side of the bed that she can see just a part of her patient's face. His eyes are closed, there's no pillow—the side of his face is scrunched into the mattress. The sight makes her own neck and shoulders twinge in sympathy at the strain he's putting on his body; she can only imagine the boy's gangly limbs folded up into a foetal position. Under the duvet, she thinks he has put an arm over his ear, perhaps to block out the sound of London morning traffic coming up from the street below.

She reaches into her pocket and extracts a penny, coming up close enough to the bed to be able to put it on the mattress, just below his nose. Then, she steps back and waits.

Beneath the tangled mass of hair, a furrow forms between eyebrows. Without opening his eyes, Sherlock's hand comes out from under the duvet to push the penny off the bed. It hits the wooden floor with a metallic ring and then it rolls until it disappears down the crack between two boards.

"How do you know that wasn't a 1933 Lavrillier pattern penny**?"

There is a sigh, followed by a muttered, "Modern. Copper plated steel after 1991. If it had been 97% copper, it would smell different."

"Glad to know your nose is still working."

"You wouldn't dare risk that rare a penny. GO AWAY!"

"Not an option."

There is no answer, but the hand creeps out from the duvet again to pull it completely over his face.

"Pretending to be sleeping is not an option either. It's gone past ten in the morning."

No reply.

Esther goes to the desk that is in the bay window, framed by the curtains. Dragging the chair across the wood floor, it makes quite a noise, to which she adds a sigh when she sits down beside the bed to take the weight off her knees.

"You know the rules of this game, Sherlock. If you agree to a management plan, he will back off and leave you and me to it. If you stop talking, eating and doing anything other than what you are doing now, then it will end up with the two of us having this same conversation only in a residential clinic with electronic locks and a pharmaceutical input."

Still no answer.

She decides to try a different tack. "If you could have one wish come true right now, what would it be?"

Muffled but still audible, a voice mutters, "You're not a fairy godmother and I'm not a child."

"Then behave like an adult and attempt a conversation with me. Off the top of your head: what's bothering or pissing you off the most right now?"

Nothing emerges from the duvet.

She decides to push a button. "I'm going to hazard a guess that it isn't a what but rather a _who_ —your brother?" She is certain of one thing: Mycroft Holmes is not the reason for Sherlock's recent brush with self-harm. Otherwise, this would have been a coping mechanism she had seen before. Mycroft may be right in that an issue pertaining to a romantic relationship is something that Sherlock would be particularly ill-equipped to deal with, so eventually that is something they must address. But, attempting to talk about this Victor Trevor right away would likely lead to Sherlock clamming up again. She needs to engage with Sherlock on something safe, something familiar, and if projecting a bit on his older brother might help, then there is little harm in indulging in a bit of that.

Sherlock groans. And then there is an explosion of movement as he pushes himself upright, bare-chested, the duvet shoved into his lap. He is glaring at her, which she registers at exactly the same time as she is surprised by how much he has changed since the last time she'd seen him, almost two years ago. Boys grow at an astonishing speed, not just in height. Sherlock has broader shoulders now, a bigger chest, and has filled out generally. There is stubble on his chin. His hands no longer look outsized on a smaller body. If it weren't for his face, she'd be pleased with what has happened to the boy; he looks physically more fit and at a healthier weight than she remembers ever seeing him.

His face, though, pushes all that aside; the sight worries her immensely. Red-rimmed eyes glare out of an expression bearing the ravages of loss, anger and disappointment.

"I _hate_ him."

The baritone may be deeper, but it is still brutal. "I don't need you to run interference for me when it comes to my brother."

"Oh?" She lets the sceptical tone be obvious.

"He doesn't need your help to do what he always does: dictating, pontificating and generally ruining my life. I really, really _hate_ him now."

"Care to be specific? What's he done this time?"

He rolls his eyes. "He's abusing his control over my trust fund. It's extortion, blackmail to force me into doing what he wants instead of what I need to do."

"Which is what?"

He brings his knees up to his chest and rests his head on them. "I need to be in Auckland right now, not stuck here. Instead, he's stolen my passport and stopped me from getting to my own money to buy the air ticket."

He raises his head to stare at her, and then scowls when he's worked something out based on what he can see of her face. "He's told you about Victor, then—probably already poisoned your mind about him before he let you come upstairs."

"Mycroft told me about Victor Trevor when he came to see me in March, on his way up to Cambridge. He's been worried about your relationship for some time."

Sherlock scoffs. " _Worried_?! He's tried to _destroy_ it from the start! If worry was all he'd done, then everything would be fine. What did you tell him in March, then? To come to Cambridge to insult and try to separate us?"

Esther stifles a sigh. She had not known whether Mycroft had heeded her advice to respect Sherlock's independence; it seems not. "I told him that I thought you should be allowed the freedom to experiment."

"Experiment? That isn't the right word. I _told_ you he'd spin it the way he wants you to think."

"What is the right word, then?"

He quick ruffles his mess of curls with both hands, leaving them even more dishevelled. "Victor's my friend, my…boyfriend. We've made plans for finishing our studies next year, and then going into business together."

"A long-term relationship, then."

"Yes."

"What do you think Mycroft has done?"

He looks down at the mattress, fingers picking at the duvet. "Like I said, he's used the money to blackmail me and keep me from going with Victor. And I can't do anything about it until I'm twenty-one."

"Are you planning to spend the next six months in bed? Like a caterpillar going into a cocoon, are you planning to wake up on the sixth of January and fly out of here as an adult butterfly?"

"Don't tempt me."

"What would Victor think of that?"

"I don't know. How can I know? He is twelve thousand miles away."

"Have you spoken to him on the phone?"

"Mycroft's holding my phone hostage."

"I'll try to get it back."

"Then ask him for my passport, too."

"Not going to happen. You're stuck here for the duration; make the most of it. I can get your phone back, provided you and I agree on a plan."

Sherlock shakes his head. "I'm not paying a ransom. He has to keep his nose out of my business. No listening in to my phone calls, no commenting from the side-lines about what I should or should not be doing."

"How long will Victor be gone?"

Sherlock shrugs. "He could be gone all summer."

"It upsets you that he isn't here."

Sherlock evades her eyes. "I'd rather be there with him. I _need_ to be there with him."

There's a sudden urgency in his voice she finds telling. "Why?" she asks, carefully keeping her tone neutral.

"None of your business."

"Fair enough." Esther didn't really expect him to open up about his feelings so soon. "What will you do until he gets back? More to the point, what does he think you are going to be doing?"

"I'm supposed to be doing an internship in Cambridge, but the thought appals me. It was only tolerable as an excuse to spend the summer with him, away from all this." He waves dismissively at the room.

"So, if that isn't going to happen, what is the alternative?"

He shrugs. "London has its attractions. It's a good place for killing time."

Esther knows that if Mycroft were to hear that, he'd draw the wrong conclusions. "Aren't there too many temptations here in London? Wouldn't Parham be safer?"

"Why does _everyone_ always assume the worst? I can control myself."

She knows she has to address the unspoken, confront the issue head-on. "If so, then what happened in the flat?"

He shrugs. "A bit of breakage."

"That doesn't explain the four scars now forming on your thigh."

Another shrug. "Better than the alternative."

"You'll need to explain that one. I'm not a mind reader."

"I wanted to stop, just stop— thinking, feeling, caring— _everything_. The last time I needed that I used heroin. This time I wondered if I could control the craving with some biochemistry of my own."

"So, a kind of experiment?"

"Well, you can put it that way if you want."

"Why _four_ cuts?"

"Human biochemistry: the endorphins released when the cutting stops last for a while, but when the catecholamine level dropped low enough to make me want to use again, I cut again. It got me through the night." He shrugs, nonchalant about it all.

She has to put a stop to that thinking. "Non-suicidal self-injury is not a viable coping strategy."

"I agree; letting me go to Auckland would have been better. Perhaps you can inform his high-and-mightiness that when he has backed me so far into a corner that I can't figure a way out of the torture chamber he has created, _this_ is what happens."

"You can't blame him for your decisions, Sherlock. Those are not the only two options you had available."

He doesn't reply.

"We've discussed this before, the last time you left rehab, before you started university. Time to take responsibility for your actions."

"How can I when he keeps interfering!" This is almost a shout. "He wants me to be alone, just like him, not caring about anyone. No friends. No lovers. Well, I'm not him."

"He cares about you, Sherlock. What you see as interference is him worrying about your choices. To stop the interference, you need to make good choices that don't land you in hospital. You need to demonstrate that in practice." She returns to the point she'd been trying to make before he shouted. "What worked two years ago can work again. The Ds are still viable: distract, delay, de-stress, de-catastrophise. Of those, maybe the last is worth a particular emphasis right now since you have to wait for Victor to return."

"The longer he's gone, the worse things will get."

"You explained that you think Mycroft is the one who has caused problems between you and Victor; right now, Victor is very far from his influence."

No reply.

Esther tries a different angle. "Just because you and Victor are apart does not mean that the relationship is in danger."

"Without him, _I_ am in danger."

"Why?"

"With him, there is no need for distractions because he is there and won't let me use and I don't _want_ to use; without him there is no way to de-stress, distractions only make it more obvious that he isn't with me, which stresses me out so I am bound to end in catastrophe. It's a vicious circle."

"What does he do to distract you?"

Esther's eyes are well-enough adjusted to the dim light to see the reddening of his cheeks.

She can't help but chuckle, trying to suppress the smile. "You weren't _always_ in bed. What else?"

He's looking up at the ceiling, now. "Cycling… That was good, hard, physical activity."

"Other ways of de-stressing or distracting you?"

"When I moaned too much about Mycroft or just life in general, he made me play my violin instead. That also distracted me. And the music helps; I don't know why, it just does. Oddly, clubbing does, too; maybe because it's both music and physical exercise."

"Not sensible at the moment, given the proximity of easily available drugs."

"We went clubbing once a week in Cambridge, and I stayed clean. No one seems to get it that if I want drugs I know how to get them, no matter where I am. If you were to put a line of coke right in front of me now, I'd be able to walk away. I'm not an addict."

"So, you're saying you don't have a craving now?"

"No. I'm depressed. That's different. Drugs don't make a difference to that; if anything, they make it worse, so don't even _think_ about prescribing an anti-depressant."

 _Such adult insight but lacking the maturity to make matching choices._ This is one of the things that has always made Sherlock one of her most fascinating and her most challenging patients. "What about chemistry? You said that is what you wanted to do at university, and that has kept you on the straight and narrow for the past two years. You just mentioned an internship? Couldn't you get one down here in London?"

He makes a face. "Internships are for idiots. Some egotistical professor sets up a boring research project and then gets slave labour in to do the dirty work for them. It's boring in the extreme, won't teach me anything, and I don't play well with others. So, no; I do not want to be a lab rat for someone else."

"Then, now that the situation has changed, what are you planning to do to occupy your brain during the summer?"

"Two things. As long as I'm stuck in London, then I can still help Victor find what he is looking for Down Under."

She is intrigued. "Which is what?"

"It's complicated, and personal. He's found out that his dad, who was a single parent raising him, isn't in fact his biological father. There are secrets to be prised out in New Zealand and Australia, and the evidence he unearths down there may be enough to overturn some legal hassles with his inheritance. Whatever Mycroft thinks, it's not some bloody gap year travelling thing. We had real work to do, and Victor won't get as much done and it will take him a lot longer without me."

"You can still help him from here?"

"If he calls, if I get my phone back, if my bloody brother leaves me alone."

One part of that catches Esther's attention: _'if he calls_ '. Having to interpret the words and actions and emotions of others is particularly difficult for Sherlock. If he and Victor are not communicating during the other boy's absence, Sherlock has no way of gauging the state of their relationship. This could well be a major stressor he hasn't encountered before.

"Can't you be the one to contact Victor when you get your phone back?"

Silence.

"You said _two_ things. What's the other?"

"I want to work on my own stuff, the thing I will be doing as the MSci project once term begins. Get started now, so when Victor gets back, it will take less time and we will have more time to do…other things. If I have to stay in London, I'll need access to a good lab; maybe Imperial College or UCL. I think I could talk my Director of Studies at Cambridge into getting me privileges there."

"You have the makings of a sensible plan."

"Of course I do. I'm not an idiot, as much as Mycroft would like to believe."

Esther wants to explore how Sherlock has found his way to a sensible plan after such a destructive meltdown, But she can see the anxiety and anger building and needs to tread carefully. "Then why haven't you told him these things? He says you haven't spoken since you got here."

"Why bother? He never listens to what I have to say. He rejects out of hand everything I ever want; he refuses out of principle, because it comes from me. The fact that he listens to you is something I've learned to use."

 _Oh._ That is the first time he's admitted the value of her work with him. It's not exactly a ringing endorsement of their therapeutic relationship, but at least he sees how it helps.

"Okay, here's the deal. You are going to agree to stay in London for the next month, living here in the flat."

He starts to protest, but before he can refuse, she continues. "One month, Sherlock. Non-negotiable. During that time, you get your Director of Studies to open the door to whatever facilities you need down here, and you go say nice things to the people who are willing to give you some space in their lab."

This doesn't seem to entice Sherlock much.

"You will also agree to use that bicycle of yours every day for some distracting exercise, and you will ride it to my office twice a week where we will discuss alternative coping strategies."

Sherlock sighs.

"You will stay clean, away from drugs, and no more cutting." She has sharpened her tone. "You will also adhere to a routine of personal hygiene, proper meals which do not have to be in the company of your brother, and you will be polite to Miss Forster when she attempts to impose some order on the chaos in this room."

He rolls his eyes. "Sounds as bad as Harrow."

"I'll get your phone back, so you can communicate with Victor."

This is the thing that finally shifts Sherlock's expression away from confident disdain towards apprehension. "Has he tried to call?"

"Not according to Mycroft."

Disappointment. Withdrawal. Silence.

"In return, you don't have to speak to your brother if you don't want to. And, he will give you some space. At the end of the month, we'll have a meeting—you, me and him—to see what happens next. Do you agree?"

"You don't get to decide about me and Victor. Not you, not Mycroft."

"You're right—we don't. But, we have to make sure you have a place to live, the means to continue your studies and a support network. Is this acceptable?"

He sighs and then, rather glumly, "I suppose."

"Need more commitment here, Sherlock."

She waits.

Finally, he nods.

When Esther leaves the room, she looks back at the figure sitting on the bed, arms wrapped around his knees. He seems deep in thought. She decides that is a considerable step forward from where he'd been when she first crossed the threshold.

 _Fingers crossed._

oOoOoOoOo

As luck would have it, Sherlock is halfway up Fitzjohn Avenue when the phone tucked into the sleeve of his cycle shirt erupts with the V-absent ringtone* he'd downloaded last week. For a moment, as he pushes up to a higher gear to tackle the next part of the climb up to Hampstead, he is tempted to ignore it. Probably just his brother being a prat and reminding him about his appointment with Doctor Cohen.

And then he jams on his brakes so hard that the car behind him has to swerve, beeping its horn at him. He veers to the side of the kerb, flinging his leg out of the pedal, over the bar and coming to a hard stop, hands fumbling at the Lycra sleeve.

As the club tune continues, he sees a set of numbers appear on the screen that he's been waiting for. Finger trembling, he presses the button and lifts it to his ear.

He can hear the connection open and blurts out, "Victor! Hello? Where are you?" That's the extent of breath he can manage between pants. "Where've you been?"

There is a pause, then "Sherlock. Hi- yeah it's me."

He's still panting, so he crams everything into one sentence uttered at break-neck speed, "I've been calling you for days, and it wouldn't let me leave a message, just kept saying the number was unavailable. I've been so worried."

Another delay, then "Yeah, Sorry it's taken a while. The damned phone company wouldn't extend international coverage until I paid my overdue bill. Finally figured out why it wasn't working, and paid for a call on a land line to ask Causton to sort it out. It sucked not being able to call you, but relax, I'm fine."

"It's been _ten_ days." Sherlock can hear the neediness in his voice, and wants to stuff the words back in his mouth as soon as they escape.

But Victor just laughs. "Yeah, the first four days off the plane I wandered around Auckland in a total daze of jetlag. It's bloody _cold_ here—winter— and I was freezing. Had to buy myself some decent boots. It is absolutely gorgeous down here. Snow on the mountains and now that I'm in Rotorua, I've been to the hot springs to thaw myself out a bit; it's just _amazing."_

Victor sounds happy, even exhilarated. Sherlock has no idea what to say. He's always hated talking on the phone. It's bad enough when he can actually see the people he's trying to communicate with. Facial expressions are always hard to read, but they give him some clues. On a phone, he's blind. For a moment, his capacity for speech is overwhelmed by his sheer _need_ to see and feel Victor's physical solidity in front of him. There is no way to put this into words, so finally he blurts into the silence. "You could have used a landline, called me collect."

"You sound like you're out of breath. Did I catch you at a bad time?"

"No, just on…" he takes a quick breath"…the bike and climbing a hill."

"Oh, okay." There's a little laugh that seems to echo down the line. "I am so screwed up about what time it is over there that I thought I might have woken you up at night, or caught you in the middle of a wank or something."

The flippant joke takes Sherlock by surprise, but rather than protest, he answers with a fact. "Rotorua is eleven hours ahead of London." He glances down at his watch: 2.12pm, "What are you doing up at one o'clock in the morning?"

"Just got back from a session with the local rugby boys. I'm staying at the Marist St Michaels Rugby Club in Rotorua. Makes sense to keep the costs down by bunking up with the local pros. I have to teach a couple of youth club sessions in return for the bed."

 _A session._ Sherlock feels a pang; clearly Victor has missed the camaraderie and the beer drinking that used to come with his team captaincy. First chance he gets away from Sherlock, and he's back at it. He bites back his disappointment. "Have you found out anything useful yet?"

"Started by getting some insight into those tattoos, found four ink parlours here in town and will start talking to the owners. I've given Causton a PO box address here to send the photos I asked for; it should help if I can show the work around to some people. I tried to take notes, but I had to just drop everything and run for the plane."

Sherlock almost moans. If he'd been there with Victor, there'd be no need for further delay or any notes; he has everything in his head, and he wouldn't have left the roll of film behind. "You need to go to the Rotorua police station and ask for archive records of any arrests relating to Peter Spencer or Jack Trevor in 1982."

"Yeah, okay. That's a good idea. Listen, this is costing me a fortune, so I'll be quick. I need a favour."

"What?"

"Causton said the body has been released by the police to a funeral director in Norwich. On the instructions of the mystery beneficiary, the solicitor is organising the cremation and an interment of the ashes at the Colton Church. The instructions are 'no funeral, no service, no publicity'. Obviously, I can't be there. But you could be. Can you cycle there? Take a look and see if there's anybody there who fits the description?"

 _He's already had at least two lengthy conversations with Causton, before calling me._ It stings, this realisation. "Causton should go; surely he's the one best able to recognise her since he's already seen her. He'd have a legitimate reason to attend, too."

"Yeah, well, it's bad luck, because according to him, the vicar says the internment is happening the day after tomorrow, and both of the Caustons are away right now, looking after her mum down in Devon. She had a stroke last week. You could spend the night at their flat; I'm sure they wouldn't mind. Just give him a call; you still have his number, don't you? He'll give you the codes to get in, and where to find a key."

Sherlock wonders whether Victor knows that he missed the appointment with the Norwich police to get the interim coroner's report. Mycroft had told him about it. "Death by natural causes" had been the verdict, much to Sherlock's annoyance. Should he mention it? Or will it make Victor angry with him? He's too ashamed to admit what had happened at the Saxon Street flat.

Clearly Victor still thinks that Sherlock is in Cambridge, if he thinks he could cycle to Colton. Causton couldn't have told him about what had happened, or his relocation to London. How can Sherlock even begin to tell him? Plan C is what Victor is expecting; to admit to anything else is to declare his inadequacies, his stupidity. So, he decides to say nothing.

The thought of going to Norwich intrigues him. There are other avenues to explore there, and he could recover the materials on the wall of Colton Grange, too, rather than have to duplicate the effort at the townhouse. He decides, "Okay. I'll go. Not officially, just to observe. Do you know what time the interment is taking place?"

"Four o'clock. Right, Thanks; it's good that you can do this." There is the sound of a yawn being suppressed. "I've got to go now. We'll talk soon. Bye for now."

The call is disconnected, leaving Sherlock staring at the phone in disbelief.

oOoOoOoOo

"Sherlock, what's wrong?"

Esther Cohen's patient has arrived ten minutes late. He's determined to be punctual for every appointment she's ever had with him, even at Harrow, as if proving to himself—and her—that he is capable of managing his time properly—a practical demonstration of his executive functioning. If he thinks he's going to be delayed, he's always, always phoned ahead.

Until today.

Being late would be strange enough. But the state that he's in adds a new layer of complexity to the problem, because whatever has happened has rendered him speechless.

 _Actions speak louder than words_. Sherlock had crossed the threshold, closed the door, toed off his cycling shoes and then kicked them and his helmet into the corner. Seriously concerned, she is now watching him pace barefoot in the small consulting room. Unlike his usual fluid movements, the striding is jittery, punctuated by little twitches of his hands, sometimes even his arms and shoulders get in on the act. His facial expression is similarly _odd_. Sometimes his mouth moves, as if forming words, but his lips take no shape that she can translate into unvocalised speech. His eyes have a glare of such intensity that if he'd actually been looking at someone, it would have been frightening to be on the receiving end. Withering doesn't even begin to describe it. But the one thing Sherlock has not done since he arrived is make eye-contact, so she thinks it is unlikely that somehow she's done something to upset him.

"What's happened?" A quiet, calm voice. He doesn't need her to add to whatever anxiety is fuelling this.

This is not wilful mutism; it's as if he cannot speak. The words are just _beyond reach._ It scares her, for his sake. She's seen Sherlock in a state before: drugged up to his eyeballs, seething with rage, rendered speechless with frustration, manic with anxiety, in full throttle meltdown and even crying his eyes out.

Esther's seen nothing like this before. It's like someone just ticked "all of the above" at exactly the same time. It makes her wonder if he is going to explode.

How to defuse the bomb? If she touches him, will that precipitate the explosion? She knows he doesn't like contact, but a firm grip of pressure can override his other sensory issues and give him a chance to focus. She might have done it without thinking when he was eleven or twelve, but this Sherlock is six foot tall and she's all too aware of her own petite limitations. He's never been violent in her presence, but there's always a first time.

His manic passage brings him up sharply each time he reaches the bay windows, when he turns and paces back to the door. Until he doesn't. He comes up to the sash window on the right side of the bay and stops, focusing his eyes on the glass rather than the view of the street outside.

Some instinct puts her in motion as he starts to draw his right arm back, his hand forming a fist.

" _NO!"_

Without thinking Esther flings herself out of the chair to get between him and the window.

He doesn't look at her; it's as if he doesn't even know she's there. A tremor runs through his body, but the arm keeps moving back and the shoulder gets in on the act as well.

Esther has no time to think; she reaches up and slaps him hard across the face.

Sherlock rocks back, flinching away from the slap, and looking down at her now in surprise.

"Why did you do that?"

The baritone is pitched a little higher than normal, and a red splotch is forming on his cheek where she'd slapped him.

"You were about to punch your fist through my window, weren't you?"

He nods, looking a bit stunned.

"Why?"

"Breakage."

"Sit down, now." She puts steel behind the command, and is relieved to see no signs of fight in him. He backs up and drops down into the chair by the door, his eyes looking around the room as if in surprise that he is here.

She resumes where she'd started. "What's wrong?"

"I'm an idiot."

"Well, I'm not going to argue about that right now, given what nearly happened here. But, it might help if you told me why you've come to that conclusion."

"I can't. And that's the problem. I'm totally useless at communicating."

"What's brought this revelation on?"

He pulls out his phone and looks at it, as if it has betrayed him. "Victor finally called. On the way here. And I couldn't say _anything_ that I wanted to say. The connection between my mouth and my brain just…went offline somehow."

"You couldn't say anything at all? Couldn't get any words out?"

He shakes his head. "Not like that. _Worse_. If I couldn't speak, then at least he'd have thought the connection had failed. He'd have hung up and I wouldn't have wasted the opportunity."

Esther is confused. "So what did you say, and how does that compare with what you think you should have said?"

The crinkle between his eyebrows and the look of confused frustration is one that she has come to know over the years. "Take it slow."

"It's what I didn't tell him. He still thinks I'm in Cambridge, doing an internship."

"Did you lie? Is that why you are upset?"

He shakes his head. "He made assumptions; I didn't correct him. He probably thinks I am living in the flat that I told him about."

"He didn't ask about how you are getting on?"

"No."

"What did he say?"

"Jet lag, freezing cold, rugby and he wants a favour; I'm to go see his father's ashes being buried. And how expensive phoning is."

She'd like to give this Victor a piece of her mind, and a handbook on the emotional care and feeding of one Sherlock Holmes.

"Why haven't you called him, rather than waiting for him to call you?"

His eyes narrow. Sherlock is still not making eye contact, but he seems to be more with it now than he was a few moments ago. "I did. I tried. Time after time. _The number you have rung is unavailable._ And it wouldn't put me through to a message service. Apparently, he was cut off because of an unpaid bill."

"You must have been worried about him." Esther knows that he needs to hear her validating his feelings. It must have been very confusing, distressing.

Sherlock nods. "That hasn't changed much, even now."

"What are you worried about?"

"He's going to botch this evidence gathering, get distracted by…other things."

"Such as?"

"Rugby friends, drinking sessions. _Sightseeing_." His distain about the last one shows.

"Has he ever been abroad?"

Sherlock's gaze moves across the wall. "Yes. I think so. A rugby team tour to France. But not much. We've not talked about it."

"So it will be very different, exciting for him."

Sherlock shrugs. "So what? Does that mean he should forget why he's there? What he's supposed to be doing?"

She needs to bite the bullet. "Are you worried that he's going to forget you?"

No answer.

"You are in danger of catastrophising here."

A slow nod, and then a sigh. "It's like the only reason why he called is to ask me to do something for him; I'm just a means to an end for him."

"You didn't say anything about what you are feeling? What's happened?"

"No. How could I?"

"You still can. You can call him up and tell him everything."

"It's the middle of the night; he's asleep by now."

"Then wait until tonight, and call him in what will be morning down there."

"He'll be busy."

"Sherlock, you need to tell him what you are going through. You can't be angry with him if he doesn't know how you are feeling."

"That's just the problem. When we are together, none of this stupid stuff gets in the way. He just _knows_ what to do. I don't have to say anything. Asking me to put words to this? Not possible. I'd rather strip naked and run down the street."

Remembering that what he used to get up to as a child was not far off that, Esther knows that he's not exaggerating. Sherlock has never been able to voice his emotions.

"It's a relationship, Sherlock. That means you have to communicate."

There is a flash of anger. "Great. You want me to admit that I am a hopeless defective who can't control his temper, that I smashed up a place and oh let's add in the fact that I cut myself deliberately not once, but four times because the alternative was going down to the nearest dealer to score. Like that's _really_ going to make him attracted to me. He wants me to be normal. To be doing what I said I would, burying my nose in an internship and waiting patiently for his return."

"You're angry with him."

"No… It's not his fault. He's fine, just normal. I'm the one who's not. He seems relaxed about being apart; I'm the one who is being stupid about this. I am angrier at myself for being so pathetic."

"Then call him tonight and tell him that you miss him. That's perfectly normal. It's okay to miss someone that you love."

"Is that what this is? Love?"

The question surprises her. "It would appear to be so. You have talked about a depth of commitment and emotional connection deep enough to be planning your life together for years ahead. Do you want that?"

As if not trusting himself to use the words, he nods his agreement.

"And there is physical attraction that is mutually held, and you actually enjoy it?"

Another nod. "And the other stuff, too. Being close. Sleeping in the same bed. Dancing together, just being together. I never thought I would, but I do."

"Good. That's all good, Sherlock. What you're feeling is attachment. There are a lot of positives in what I am hearing. It's just that love isn't all hearts and sweetness,. It _hurts_ when things are strained, precisely _because_ of that depth of attachment. Your distress at being apart is actually… well, if not a _good_ thing, at least it is evidence that you really do care. It's not the feeling that is the problem; it's what you are doing to try to deal with it."

"Mycroft…" he stops, as if too distressed to complete the sentence.

She decides to do so for him. "Mycroft thinks you can't handle a relationship like this. And you are angry with yourself because you think he may be right."

This time, Esther takes his silence as confirmation.

Not for the first time in their therapeutic relationship, Esther wants to step outside the bounds of professional decorum, to reach out and just give the young man a hug, trying to find a way of consoling him through this emotional pain. She _cares_ about Sherlock. Her first ever private patient, she's watched him overcome the challenges of his diversity and his family background, but she knows that he is his own worst enemy, that he has internalised a lot of ableist thinking. The amount of effort required to cope with his sensory issues and the barriers that his neurodiversity create take a huge toll on him every day. When unexpected emotional challenges get mixed up with his communication problems, it's a toxic combination that can erupt in self-hatred.

"Would it be any consolation to know that I have told Mycroft repeatedly that I think he's wrong?"

That surprises Sherlock, but it doesn't prompt him into speaking.

"You are stronger than you think, Sherlock. It's hard for anyone when communication is difficult. Long-distance relationships are always tough, no matter who you are. You shouldn't blame yourself. It's going to be frustrating. You need to find ways of letting that frustration out, without going down a self-harming route or a drugs relapse."

Sherlock sighs, and sits up in the chair. "Mycroft is going to be a nuisance when I tell him I have to be in Colton the day after tomorrow. Can you try to persuade him to stop being a prat? If I can at least do this for Victor, then the next time he calls, I will have something positive to say to him."

Esther is not surprised that he is returning to practical things. Operational thinking is something he is good at. Right now, he needs that affirmation, so she is happy to nod. "Of course. But you will have to re-schedule our appointment for the day after you get back. If you are delayed, give me a call."

He nods, and then gets up to collect his shoes and the helmet. When he gets to the door, she calls out. "In the meantime, Sherlock, please stay away from glass windows."

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

*A penny minted in 1933 is rare; the Royal Mint produced too many in 1932, so did not issue many the next year. Even rarer still is what Esther referred to. Andre Lavrillier, a French artist produced a King George V pattern penny that was never issued for circulation: there are only four known examples in the world. In 2016 one of them sold for more than $125,000. If you want to know why she would put a penny on Sherlock's pillow, you need to read Periodic Tales, Copper, Chapter Three.

Find Ringtones 2002 and find V-Absent 2002 (I kid you not, this is the name!) is real. Click on the third image along.


	38. Chapter 38

**Chapter 38: Hell**

* * *

Sherlock is standing in the study at Colton Grange, eyes roving around the room; the furniture is gone, and the space reeks of new paint, new carpets and curtains.

The assault on his nose adds to the rasp of frustration that has been sawing across his nerves for the past two days.

To enter, he'd used the Caustons' keys, which Jason had left on the kitchen table in their flat over the garages. The couple had been given keys to the new locks that have been installed because they are supposed to let in the people who are going to be viewing the property—now listed with Knight Frank and Rutledge estate agents. Since the couple are currently in Devon, ministering to Sharon Causton's mother, Sherlock has the run of the place. He's glad because he really doesn't want company right now.

He had taken an early train from London to Norwich. The fact that the place has been already cleared surprised him; he'd wanted to have another go through the filing cabinets just to be sure he hadn't missed anything in those first hectic days. In his mind's eye, he reconstructs the evidence wall, each puzzle piece slotting into place. He'd never needed it; it had been constructed to help Victor see the elements of the Jack Trevor Paradox. Putting it up in London would show Mycroft that he wasn't fantasising about this; it was real.

When his phone goes, he automatically calculates the time difference between New Zealand and here. _Twelve minutes past ten pm._ _YES!_

He's already smiling before he reads the number he's hoped for. "Hi," he answers when he hears the line connect. It's just a word, but he hopes his delight is clear. Keeping in mind his conversation with Doctor Cohen: he has to be more _obvious_. So, he adds in for good measure: "It's great to hear from you; I'm missing you."

"Well, today I'm missing just about everything good, so you might not be so happy after we're done talking." Victor sounds tired, and annoyed. "It's been one fucking failure after another today. No luck at the police station. No arrest records for either Peter Spencer or Jack Trevor."

Sherlock knows he should offer encouragement and reassurance. Once Victor has vented his frustrations, maybe they can then talk about other things. "That's to be expected. It's a crime that wasn't solved back then. So, we now know it wasn't reported. Maybe no one has ever known it took place, except the people who were involved."

"Is that supposed to cheer me up? We know that at least three of the four people involved are either dead, or missing, presumed dead. The only one we don't know about is Simon's mother."

"It has to be still possible to put the clues together. We never expected anyone to turn themselves in or confess; all we have to do is create reasonable doubt that the wills are the product of blackmail and extortion."

"I've also spent the day traipsing about town looking at the ink parlours. Causton faxed me the photo of the tattoo, and three people recognised his work, but it turns out the guy who did it died fourteen years ago. No one knows why he would have left the middle empty; all the Maori guys say it's just not the way they do things. It's even kind of like a sacrilege, and they don't want to believe it of this artist, who's some sort of legend. So that's a dead-end, too."

Sherlock feels obliged to put a more positive spin on the outcome; he's disappointed in Victor's defeatism. "Well, at least it means that Jack was in Rotorua, and he's not the only one. I messaged Simon to find out if his dad had a similar tattoo, and he's confirmed it. It's on his left shoulder, and Peter never had the J and P initials removed." It had been a relief to resort to text messaging; Simon used it all the time for his work. There was less ambiguity in an SMS, and he'd gotten the answers he needed quickly. "While I think of it, does your phone contract include SMS messages between New Zealand and here? It would make the time difference less of a problem," he offers.

There is an incredulous laugh on the other end. "Listen, roaming charges out here are ridiculous. They charge me for every incoming call, too, not just outgoing. Mobile to mobile is the worst; I'm having to top up the phone every other day or they stop the service. You know I'm running up a huge credit card bill out here, so, let's not add messages to that. What did Simon say about the lawsuits?"

Sherlock doesn't want to add fuel to the fire of Victor's mood, but there is no way around telling him the truth. "Not great. He phoned me after he'd left work last night to say his civil suit is stalled indefinitely. Solicitor says overturning Peter's will depends on him being found. And before you ask, not yet. No body, no boat. If he's still alive, the case is different. If dead, then the whole thing needs to wait for an inquest into the circumstances. If it's suicide, then that creates a different legal line. He did say that the solicitor doesn't think the extortion idea will hold water unless we can find conclusive evidence. It could be months, even years before the case would move forward if there's no body."

Victor gives a small groan of frustration. "Poor Simon. Can't even imagine what he's going through, even if he and his dad weren't that close."

 _Caring and empathy for what_ Simon _is going through?_ Sherlock firmly stomps down his bitter jealousy over Victor's reaction. _He needs me to run things at this end, not complain and demand reassurances._

"And the police investigations?" Victor presses.

Sherlock's not going to admit that Mycroft hasn't let him see the actual report, because that would require him to explain the reason. "Since the Coroner's Interim Report based on the post mortem concluded natural causes, it's been dropped. That's why the body was released and has already been cremated. So, the police don't have a reason to proceed."

The sigh is audible twelve thousand miles away. "No pressure, then."

For a moment, the comment makes Sherlock's mind stutter. In fact, both Victor and he are now under intense pressure; all of their plans rely on getting evidence that is looking increasingly difficult to obtain. Then, he realises that Victor is using sarcasm. "You are…upset about this?" he asks carefully.

"Damn right I am! The meter is running, and every minute is racking up the costs. Legal fees, me being out here, spending the loan from Simon. Even these phone calls—it's like the taxi meter is ticking over, but we're getting further and further _away_ from the answers. Maybe I should jack the whole thing in and come home."

A part of Sherlock latches on to that idea like a lifeline, but he manages to remind himself how crucial it is that Victor comes back with something tangible. Anxiety is creeping up; he needs to keep Victor working on the case, but he sounds so depressed, and Sherlock has no idea how to cheer him up. All he has to offer is the truth: "We just have to keep going. Don't worry about the money. In January, it won't matter. I can pay off the debts."

"Relying on that right now makes me uncomfortable."

"Why? It's not a problem." Why does he need to keep repeating this? He doesn't care about the money and Victor doesn't have to, either; they'll soon have enough of it if they just wait, or if Mycroft has some sort of a sudden stroke that makes him act sensibly.

Sherlock decides he needs to distract Victor. "I'm in Colton now."

"I don't suppose you've seen your mystery woman hanging around the village, waiting for the interment?" Victor's tone is strange, as though he's sceptical of her existence.

"She's not _mine_ , Victor. Causton saw her in the flesh so we know this Gees woman is real. According to the St Andrews Vicar, apart from him the only other people who will be there are someone bringing the ashes from the crematorium, and someone from your father's solicitor's firm." Sherlock wonders if Victor knows how hard it will be for him to have anything further to do with Jack Trevor—a man who had hated him, despised and reviled him. The thought of going anywhere near the interment makes his innards twist. At least there won't be any relatives or close friends there—not that Sherlock assumes Jack Trevor would have advertised to them the reasons for disinheriting Victor or the identities of the people involved. Or, would he have, to distance himself from such things? He really cannot tell. "I will check, of course; I'll be keeping an eye on the burial, in my disguise as a brass rubbing enthusiast. The vicar said I don't have to leave the graveyard, because it isn't a service. That's how I found out about who's expected."

He can hear Victor's sigh from the other end. "Bugger. We aren't making much progress, are we? Sorry to have made you cycle all that way."

"No problem. I enjoyed the exercise." Sherlock is not going to tell him that he'd taken a train from London to Norwich and then a taxi to Colton.

There's a pregnant pause which Sherlock knows he needs to end if he's to prevent Victor from ringing off. He has some news that he is reluctant to pass on, given his boyfriend's downbeat mood, but he decides it's better to be honest. "Um, you should know… The solicitors have put the Grange up for sale. And all the furniture is gone."

"Yeah, Causton already told me; called him yesterday to see how he's getting on with the mother-in-law. Before he left for Devon, he moved my stuff into his loft, and he's got my bike, too, in the garage next to his car. I never liked Dad's taste, so it's no loss."

Yet again, Sherlock has to stifle his jealousy and hurt. Victor complains about the expense of telephoning but keeps speaking to Causton? About his _mother-in-law_?

Doesn't Victor understand at all how difficult this is? Is it not difficult for him, being halfway across the globe without Sherlock? Clearly, he can cope—even in the middle of a family crisis—whereas Sherlock can't.

 _I'm failing him._

"Did he also collect your father's files from the study?" he scrambles to ask.

"No. The solicitor took the lot; boxed it all up. Apparently, the company is up for sale, too." Victor sounds exasperated. "A fat lot of good this is doing. I'm on the other side of the planet, looking for someone whose surname I don't know when it's only a matter of time before this woman gets everything and disappears. We have no idea how she has anything to do with my father, who it turns out isn't actually my father. It makes me wonder who the hell is. We don't know a thing about Gees except that she might be from New Zealand. Who says she's even from Rotorua? She could be a Kiwi raised in Australia, or someone who moved to the UK years ago. Seems like a bloody needle in a haystack. Not sure anyone could find her with what we've got."

Sherlock hears the implied criticism, and it slides into his heart like a stiletto.

Before he starts to bleed from the thought that Victor is losing faith in his abilities to solve the puzzle, he rushes his next sentences: "Victor, just listen. We have no idea why Jack and Peter went to Rototua. I mean, why _there_? What, or rather _who_ , was there that would draw them to that particular place? There has to be a reason."

To stop Victor from interrupting, Sherlock rushes on: "While I had Simon on the phone, I asked him for his mother's maiden name: it's Simpson. According to the online telephone directory for Rotorua, there are nineteen Simpson families in the area. One of them may be a relative. Go knock on doors, see if anyone had a relative called Elizabeth or Betty who visited them in 1989. If she came with her husband, and another couple, then we've at least placed them there. And you can see if anyone remembers why they were there." He has to stop to draw breath.

"Seems a bit far-fetched; another wild goose chase you're sending me on."

Scepticism is not what he needs to be hearing from Victor. He snaps, "Would doing a bit of leg work interfere too much with your sightseeing plans? Your rugby coaching sessions? Or is it going to disrupt your partying?"

"Whoa—you sound a bit grumpy. I'm not exactly sipping a cocktail by the pool here! Get out of the wrong side of the bed this morning?"

"It doesn't matter which side of the bed I get out of these days, because I am the only one in it. You focusing on the task in hand is the only thing that could bring us back together sooner rather than later."

There is a little wry chuckle at the other end. "Yeah, well, I miss you, too, Sherlock."

The bleeding slows. Just one comment like that, and it's enough to repair some of the damage. Sherlock is torn; he wants _more_ , but will it sound too needy? Will Victor think he is being clingy? His reluctance is overwhelmed by his uncertainty; their brief argument has tilted what little equilibrium he's clinging on to way too much. "Do you? Really? Despite all the attractions where you are?"

"Everything would be better if you were here with me. You do know that, don't you?" Victor sounds surprised.

"No, I don't know! I _can't_ know. Not unless you tell me." Why does Victor expect him to be a mind reader? Or, is this another case of what Mycroft calls his social deficits? Has he somehow missed important cues that Victor's affections haven't waned since his departure? Things clearly haven't been the same since Jack Trevor died, so how could he come to such a conclusion?

"Look, I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you, but what I'd really like is for us to have come here just to enjoy ourselves. Instead, you're trying to make me feel guilty about doing anything for even a single minute other than playing amateur sleuth out here. It's a bitch that your brother took your passport, because I could really do with some help out here; you're better at this than me."

The pain resumes in Sherlock's chest. "I'm doing what I can from here." He knows it sounds defensive, and he resents the fact that he can't come up with a better answer. _Damn Mycroft!_

"Yeah, I know. It's just getting me down, all this. If only dad had died of a heart attack last Christmas. And, as soon as I think that, I realise how awful that makes me sound, but it's true. All I really want to do is re-wind the past six weeks and start over again."

"We can't undo what has happened."

There is a silence, a pause that goes on long enough to make Sherlock worry that the connection has somehow been lost.

Then, Victor speaks. "I'm sorry. There's just too much going on in my head right now, and I can't deal with even half of it right now."

Sherlock doesn't understand. _Which half am I in?_

"So, I'm going to pack it in tonight," Victor announces. "If anything miraculous happens, give me a call. Good night."

Sherlock opens his mouth, grasps the phone with both his hands, scrambling to come up with something, _anything_ to keep Victor on the line, but comes up with nothing. Social scripting has taught him that he has to reciprocate, so he manages to stutter out a _good night_ before Victor ends the call without another word.

It's _not_ a good night.

He almost drops the phone in disgust at himself. Victor is clearly regretting his trip, blaming Sherlock for sending him on a mission that he is now doubting, and getting annoyed at being reminded to keep his eye on the ball—as Jack Trevor liked to say. It was _Victor's_ choice to go on his own; Sherlock had argued against it but been totally ignored. _Why can't I communicate?_ He's totally useless at getting his point across in a way the Victor can understand. No matter how many times Sherlock tells him to stop worrying about the money, he still raises it every time they speak.

Why hadn't he at least suggested he could pay the phone bills? _Inept idiot. Socially handicapped._

No wonder Victor ended the call early; Sherlock's not been able to make him feel any better. He never does. In fact, that must be the explanation as to why Victor doesn't call him more often, because when he does, this sort of misunderstanding happens.

Sherlock sinks down to sit on the floor of Jack Trevor's study and starts to think, to really think about how he can solve this problem. This is no time for hesitation; he needs to do everything in his power to fix things.

oOoOoOoOo

"I am sorry to disturb you at this hour, sir, but I need a decision and it can't wait."

"What's the problem?" It may be half past midnight but Mycroft has not gone to bed yet; events in Nepal are keeping him awake. The king is making a hash of the state of emergency, disagreeing with the prime minister about whether to dissolve parliament and call for fresh elections. In the political disruption, the Maoist PLA forces are gaining strength in the rural communities.

"As you predicted, the target did not stay at Colton Grange. He left the house at ten thirty pm on a bicycle he took from the garage under the flat. His phone was tracked as he rode first to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital. He was followed into the hospital, but we lost him briefly inside; we think he may have disguised himself in medical clothing. After forty minutes, he emerged in his civilian clothes and got back on his bike, travelling into the centre of Norwich. He then went to Norfolk Coroner's office in Norwich and gained entry to the premises through a back door, by a method we were unable to observe. The target emerged sixteen minutes later."

"You said this was urgent; come to the point."

"I am on-site now, at Fosters Solicitors offices on Bank Plain Street, where the target is seeking entry through the back door. This time I have eyes on him. I estimate his lock-picking skills are going to be up to the task, sir."

Mycroft rolls his eyes. He'd been a fool to trust Sherlock to spend a single night away from the townhouse without getting himself in trouble. "Stop him. Preferably before he commits yet another offence of breaking and entering, interfering with a police investigation or tampering with evidence."

"That will mean identifying myself, sir, and possibly the rest of the team."

"He's almost certainly done that already, Mister Baker. You can rotate the team members as much as you like, but he will still be able to pick them out."

"And when I have apprehended him, what would you like me to do with him?"

A part of Mycroft would like Sherlock to end up in a police cell for the night, just to teach him a lesson, but that lesson is unlikely to stick. The incident just might end up in a permanent police record.

With a weary sigh, he says, "Handcuff him, remove everything that he has managed to steal and bring him back here. And take away his phone. Turn it off."

oOoOoOoOo

"What do you have to say for yourself?"

Sherlock glares at Mycroft from the leather chair where he is sitting. He raises his hands to make a rude gesture with the middle finger of both his hands, which are joined together by the metal cuffs. Baker is outside the library, ready to intervene if there's an attempt by Sherlock to remove himself from the South Eaton Place townhouse. In the hands of the Norfolk constabulary Police, Sherlock would undoubtedly have had to endure much worse, and lessons need to be learned.

"Don't be childish. Consider yourself lucky that you aren't in police custody. What on earth possessed you to become a thief?"

Mycroft already knows the answer, but needs his brother to admit that his obsessive relationship with the Trevor boy has led him down a dangerous path. On Mycroft's desk there is a collection of evidence that Charles Baker had removed from Sherlock's pockets: two blood samples, photocopied sheets from the Interim Coroner's Report, and a stack of cash in twenty-pound notes, withdrawn from the cash machine at the Norwich & Norfolk Hospital. It represented the full value of Sherlock's monthly allowance, which had been deposited two days ago.

More damning evidence is in the typed transcript of the phone conversation between Sherlock and Victor Trevor. Also on the desk is the translated conversation between Sherlock and Madam Cheong Huilang. The S&ILS brief on this woman and her Samsui organisation makes very disturbing reading. Not for the first time this evening, he is grateful that he'd taken the decision to tap the actual conversations, rather than just trace the numbers being called.

Mycroft tries again. "Why are you in touch with a known criminal organisation?" He has deduced the reason, but wants Sherlock to admit to it.

Sherlock does not even bother raising his eyes to Mycroft's; he just sits there seething in rage, brought on, no doubt, by the agents' intervention in the boy's plans for escape. He's stolen evidence that will be useful in this ridiculous investigation of his on behalf of Victor Trevor. The cash isn't enough to buy an air ticket, but somehow the Chinese woman is willing to get him out of the country. The fact that is most disturbing in that deductive chain is that if Baker had not intervened, then it is quite possible that the boy's plot could have succeeded. Cheong Huilang has connections with the 14k triad, which had significant success in smuggling illegal Chinese immigrants into the UK.

This last point is more worrying, because Mycroft cannot deduce how Sherlock knows her. "Why would the Samsui be willing to smuggle you out of the country?"

Still no reaction.

Mycroft decides that he needs to provoke that anger into outward expression. "You are leaving me no choice. This infatuation of yours has turned into an unhealthy obsession. And now it's led you into committing indictable crimes as well as consorting with criminals. I am minded to put an end to it. You have given me no reason to condone any further contact between you and Trevor while he is in New Zealand. And I can see no benefit in sponsoring such a toxic relationship when he returns. So, what you've childishly called 'Plan C' is off the table. I will not fund your cohabitation with this boy next term, nor will I authorise a loan to cover his tuition fees. Contrary to your assumptions, I derive no joy from intervening and Lord knows I have other matters that require my attention but clearly you are not able to sort this out yourself. A clean break should be easiest. You will not hear from Victor Trevor again."

Still no reply. Mycroft harbours no misconceptions about Sherlock's willingness to take advice from him, but pure logic should still prevail, even if repelled by hormonal urges. "You have been seriously injured three times, broken your sobriety, risked prison and your entire academic future for this boy, yet you cannot even tell him you're struggling since he left? What does that say about the foundation of your relationship? The cost has been great for him as well—destitution and alienation from his family. What is left between the two of you that could possibly compensate for all that? It doesn't matter if he asked you to break the law on his behalf or not; the fact remains that you did—that you were willing to throw caution to the wind in such a manner. I don't expect you to see sense right now, but with time you will see that nothing good would have come out of it. It's over, Sherlock, and I suspect it has been over for some time since it's driven you to such desperate acts."

He suspects that this…this… _case_ Sherlock is trying to build is nothing but a desperate attempt to rationalise, to _intellectualise_ a problem that does not, by its very nature, adhere to such principles. That problem being, of course, that his brother is utterly unprepared and unequipped to handle an adult relationship.

He sighs. "It's time to stop, Sherlock, and gain some perspective. The evidence is right in front of you, and it's not about some grand conspiracy to conceal a crime from twenty years ago. Even if it existed, it would have little bearing in the fate of your relationship with him. This isn't a riddle to solve or a puzzle to assemble. It's sentiment, and by its very nature it is messy, illogical and dangerous and this should teach you to steer clear of it."

Sherlock won't look at him; his eyes are fixed on the empty grate of the fireplace.

Mycroft does not hesitate. "This isn't love; it's a pathological dependence—an _addiction—_ to someone who is clearly not very aware of your particular needs nor very concerned with your well-being."

Expecting this to cause an explosion—so far, Sherlock has never failed to fervently defend the Trevor boy—Mycroft is startled when Sherlock slumps instead, the tension that has been keeping his posture defiant slowly ebbing away.

Mycroft sees the boy's facial expression slacken and then disappear into blankness. It is the oddest thing he has ever seen from Sherlock. Concerned, he walks up to the chair and reaches down to shake Sherlock's shoulder. "Are you alright?"

There is no response. The boy's handcuffed hands are now lying slack in his lap, eyes staring at nothing.

oOoOoOoOo

"What's happened?" Doctor Cohen asks, clearly concerned with having been summoned from her duties elsewhere to an emergency consultation in Parham.

"Victor Trevor _happened_. As I feared, their relationship continues to be a disaster. I brought him here to Parham in the hope that putting some distance between him and recent events will help. I will ask Mrs Walters to bring us some coffee, and then I will tell you more."

Mycroft firmly believes that her presence is imperative for damage control, and he had made that clear during their phone call an hour before the arranged transport was to pick her up. It has been well established that when it comes to matters of the heart, Sherlock will not listen to his counsel—if anything, he will do the exact opposite of what he advises just to spite him.

After observing the domestic routines of the English morning coffee, Doctor Cohen is looking at him sternly and expectantly.

The ever-observant Mrs Walters makes her excuses and leaves them in the Yellow Room.

After a single sip of her coffee, Esther puts the cup down and asks, "Details. All of them."

"As you know, Victor Trevor is in New Zealand. I refused to let Sherlock go with him."

"I know that because Sherlock told me about it during his appointments in Hampstead; what I don't know is why, from your point of view."

Mycroft is irritated at the sense being judged. He finds it odd that she should be so willing to allow Sherlock the freedom to wreck himself. He's disappointed to find that not even a trained psychiatrist can resist the naive optimism that befalls people when it comes to love and other sentiments.

"The Trevor boy is attempting to sort out a rather complicated life history. The boy's father, recently deceased, disinherited him because of his relationship with Sherlock. My brother has been obsessing ever since about some conspiracy theory, encouraging Trevor Junior to become indebted for legal fees pursuing lawsuits that will not be won for lack of evidence. Sherlock has managed to provoke the police into a pointless investigation and has hypothesized—without any evidence—that Trevor Senior had been involved in some sort of criminal activity before he emigrated to this country."

Mycroft takes a sip of the Arabica blend before continuing. "It's all rather bizarre, and proof that his mind is becoming further destabilised after the incident at the Saxon Street flat. For example, he agreed to Victor's suggestion that he go to the interment of Jack Trevor's ashes at Colton, despite the fact that the man was vile in the extreme to him when he was alive. He must have been aware of the stress that would cause Sherlock, but I shouldn't be surprised by my brother's willingness to go anyway—he has been willing to risk much more than just his peace of mind for this boy. Even though he was present when his father treated Sherlock so deplorably, the young Trevor demanded he go through with this without thinking about the consequences."

After another taste of the coffee, Mycroft continues. "Sherlock's obsession with the death of Trevor Senior has now led to dangerous behaviour in the middle of the night in Norwich city centre. Thankfully, my surveillance team collected him and brought him home before it escalated further or the police became involved. You've already seen his use of self-harm, which demonstrated exactly what I was concerned about when their relationship first began. His behaviour since being apprehended before he could commit an indictable crime has been total withdrawal and non-cooperation. Clearly, this relationship of his is toxic. How much more evidence do you need?"

"So, you feel vindicated."

Mycroft is surprised by her judgmental tone. "Yes, of course I do. It is obvious that their relationship has become destabilised. Sherlock is attempting to use his Trust Fund money to subsidise the Trevor boy into cohabiting with him this summer, even paying his graduate tuition fees so he would stay in Cambridge next year. It's bribery on his behalf, even if he may not realise it, and financial abuse on Trevor's."

He omits the fact that Victor has at least consistently pretended to be most uncomfortable with accepting such funds. He has been living on his father's money at Cambridge, and now he is funding the New Zealand trip through a cousin and the cousin's co-worker. Guilty conscience or not, Trevor is a serial abuser of others' generosity.

Doctor Cohen seems unmoved by the revelations. "You can't stop him from spending his money the way he wants to after January, so why be difficult now, unless you've decided to pile yet more pressure onto their relationship?"

 _How can the woman not understand?_ Mycroft snaps, "That pressure is _self-inflicted_ —by Sherlock, most of all. He does not know how to handle the anxiety levels associated with this kind of sexual and emotional relationship. His inability to cope with their separation is a case in point. All I have done is require a brief hiatus, a cooling off period if you may, for their own good. If in six months, Trevor is back in the country and Sherlock has made a good start to his fourth year at university then, as you say, it's his money and if he wishes to throw it away on this foolishness, then I cannot stop him. But, at least he will have had time to consider whether the Trevor boy is really serious, or whether he's just exploiting and exacerbating my brother's weaknesses. I cannot risk their continued communications to keep clouding his judgment. I am confident that his considerable intellect will come to the right decision once he gains some distance from the emotional side of this tryst. I need you to speak with him, today."

"Do you want my advice, or just my complicity in telling him what you think he should do?"

"Both. You will not sway my decision, but if you can help him see the wisdom of the cooling off period, it would be much appreciated, as would any thoughts on how best I can continue talking to him about it in a way that will be most persuasive."

"Then, my advice is this: don't belittle their relationship," Cohen instantly tells him.

Mycroft huffs. "Raising it on some pedestal is counter-intuitive to what needs to be achieved."

"I am not telling you to soft-pedal what has happened, but I guarantee that you will lose whatever little willingness he has to listen to you the minute you describe what he has with Victor as anything but a serious attempt at a long-term relationship. Your language will matter. Try not to belittle your brother. It's not a tryst, not hormonal lust, not a childish crush, not a casual acquaintance, not an affair."

"You may be willing to help him entertain such a fantasy; I am most decidedly not. He needs to learn how not to invest so much significance in something so destructive for him."

"That may be your opinion, but it isn't his. It's his right to define what Victor means to him. You are not a parent who needs to separate a child from a new friend who is a bad influence; you need to try to help him navigate what does appear to be a struggling if not failing relationship." She averts her gaze, looks out the window with her lips pinched. "I sound like a broken record. I do wonder sometimes which of the two of you is less willing to listen to counsel."

Mycroft leans back in his chair. She's right in that he had asked for advice, He's not happy with what she is saying, but it is best to hear her logic, if this is what Sherlock is going to be thinking. . "Very well; pray continue."

"I agree with some of the points you raised about the particular challenges Sherlock has with human interaction, but you must be wary of sending the signal that he's the one to blame. He may have made some bad decisions in the course of the relationship, but there's a major risk here of a severe deterioration in his self-esteem in areas he has very little confidence in at the best of times."

Mycroft nods while turning the handle of his cup towards the middle of the table. He likes to leave things neatly for the housekeeper. "That is precisely my point: why should he deliberately seek out trouble in those areas of his life in which he struggles the most?"

Doctor Cohen's expression is quite sad, now. "Individuals on the Spectrum have trouble forming relationships even if they want them. The loneliness can be crippling."

"Indeed. But, it can provide protection from even worse problems."

"Let me see him, Mycroft; it's pointless continuing this conversation without talking to him."

oOoOoOoOo

"If he doesn't come out of this soon, Mycroft, then he needs to be hospitalised." Doctor Cohen steps away from the still figure lying in the single bed. "If only to keep him hydrated and fed through a nasal tube. He'll soon be losing muscle tone."

It's been two days. Sherlock had not responded to Doctor Cohen on her first visit, which had not surprised Mycroft; he recognises how upsetting the situation must be his brother and, the pattern is already familiar from the Saxon Street incident. But, this time his retreat into himself is so alarmingly complete that Doctor Cohen is right: something must be done. So, she has been brought in for an assessment.

"You were able to reach him before; can't you do it now?"

She gestures towards the door. "Let's have a word outside."

Down the corridor of the East wing of Parham house, he follows her into the long gallery. When she turns to speak to him, there is a trace of anger in her eyes. "I'm not a miracle-worker, Mycroft. Last time, he was too pissed off to speak with you, because he said you never listen to what he wants. This time, he's dissociated. Unreachable, in other words. I can't just tempt him out of this with some trick."

"Mycroft––" she starts again, and there is something very judgmental in her voice. She takes a deep breath, starts to speak again, but then stops, shaking her head. "No, not going there; I have to consider what is best for Sherlock. Don't take this the wrong way, but I think we need to put as much distance between you and him as possible for a while. It's my professional responsibility to formulate the home treatment plan for my patient. So, go back to London tonight. I can shift tomorrow's appointments so I can keep him under observation here. If there is no improvement overnight, we might need to consider admission. I'm consulting now at the Priory Hospital at Hayes Grove; it's just down the road from Bethlem Royal. It's a private unit offering in-patient treatment, and is able to provide a supportive environment. I promise to keep you informed."

Why does Mycroft feel like he's been dismissed? He's only trying to do what is best for his brother. He had tried his best to follow the psychiatrist's advice in his conversation with Sherlock two days ago, but she still seems most displeased with him.

Setting aside his misgivings, he knows that there is no other doctor that knows Sherlock as well, or has had such success with the boy. "Very well, Doctor Cohen. I will comply with your wishes."

oOoOoOoOo

The car has just past the outskirts of Dorking when Mycroft decides to check Sherlock's phone.

 _"You have…seven… new messages."_

 _Good Lord, the Trevor boy just doesn't know when to shut up._ Mycroft sniffs and presses the key to hear the first recording.

"Hi, Sherlock. Just a quickie to say that your idea was brilliant! Took me a while but the sixth Simpson I visited turned out to be Lizzie Simpson, the wife of Rob, Betty's uncle. She moved there when he died in Weipa, killed in a mining accident at the Comalco bauxite mine. Old lady now, but she was so kind, let me in when I told her I was looking for Betty. Turns out she'd been close to her husband's sister, even named their daughter Elizabeth after her. She invited me in and, well, I think she's lonely so I got the whole family history. What matters is… _BEEP._

 _"To save this message, press star. To delete, press hash_. _To continue listening to messages, press one."_

Mycroft presses the number one key.

" _Second message."_

"Damn, these recorded messages sure are short. So be prepared for a lot!" This is followed by a chuckle and then, "Over a cup of tea, I told her I was Simon's cousin and searching out the family while I was over here. She drags out an old high school yearbook that her husband had, from Betty's last year in Weipa. Wow, turns out Betty and my mum were best friends from school. Soulmates, inseparable. I never knew that high school girls would be so…smoochy?" Victor laughs. "Lots of love and kisses and all that stuff all over the whole yearbook in Gloria's handwriting. So yeah, Lizzie knew my mum! Betty's dad didn't get on with Glo… _BEEP."_

Mycroft is rolling his eyes at this stage. What relevance on earth could such pointless domestic drama have? Sherlock is beside himself with worry about being apart from this boy, and all he can do is talk such drivel? No better evidence could be had that this is a relationship that is not going to end well. He presses the one key to cut off the annoying recorded message.

 _"Third message."_

"Christ this is costing a fortune, but I've got to share it with you, because you are just so brilliantly right! Betty's family didn't get on with Gloria and kept pressuring her to date boys, so she hooked up with the most disreputable ones she could find. And, she ended up pregnant, so was forced by her family to marry Peter Spencer. God, Simon's going to freak when I tell him that! According to Lizzie, Gloria wouldn't go to the wedding and it sort of broke Betty's heart. Then, Gloria ends up marrying an equally unsuitable bloke, even worse than Peter. Abandoned by his own mother, unknown father, taken into care. A loner at the school, always in trouble. It was as if she'd gone out to pick the most unsuitable boy in the whole town! _BEEP."_

Mycroft immediately presses one.

 _"Fourth message."_

"Yep, you've guessed it: Jack Trevor. I can't believe how many lies my dad has told about his family; turns out, he was from Townsville, foster kid who ran away at fifteen. He'd been dumped in an orphanage by his mum at less than a year old. Christ, what this Lizzie told me about him makes me almost glad that I'm not actually related to him. How could he have lied so much to me when I was growing up? Anyway… bit off track there. Lizzie was feeding me a piece of cake when she told me what happened when her niece Betty gave birth to Simon up in Weipa. The marriage was never very good; Peter blamed Gloria for keeping his wife unhappy. So, he ups sticks and moves… _BEEP."_

Mycroft glances up as the car clears the backed-up traffic trying to get onto the slip road onto the M25. Once they pass that, the A24 will take them through Epsom before they head eastwards through Sutton. Traffic willing, they should be at South Eaton Place in an hour.

Mycroft presses one.

 _"Fifth message."_

"Where was I? Oh yeah, Peter and Betty move down south from Weipa to Wollongong; Simon's two years old then. Apparently, Gloria is the one who convinced Jack to go there, too, about six months later. Lizzie sort of lost touch with them for about almost four years because her own husband died, and she'd moved to New Zealand to be near her mum, who was also in the process of dying. They did the Christmas cards thing, but nothing more. Then Betty and Simon, together with Gloria, suddenly show up in Rotorua out of the blue, saying that they'd split from their husbands and were going to start a new life in New Zealand, together. I'll wait for the beep here rather than get interrupted again."

There is a pause, then … _BEEP._

Again, Mycroft thumbs the one key.

 _"Sixth message."_

"Here's when it gets interesting. God, you'd have loved to be here to hear this first hand. Two days after the girls and Simon arrive, Peter and Jack turn up and tell Lizzie to leave her own damned house, so they can have a discussion with their wives. She regrets the fact that she did, but she wanted to let them sort their problems out. When Lizzie comes back to the house a couple of hours later, Betty is the only one there. She's in a state, saying that Peter's taken Simon with him, and that Jack has taken Gloria with him, back to Sydney. Betty was beaten up but won't go to the police or see a doctor. Christ, I better finish this, or I'll run out of money on the phone. After the shock of it wears off and the bruises heal, Betty's depressed as hell for about six weeks and then suddenly says she's going to go off to the South Island to see if she can find work in the wine trade down there."

The message ends with a _BEEP._

Again, Mycroft tries to imagine what, if any, comfort Sherlock could get from hearing these inane messages. All of this seems very far away from what has been happening to his brother, not just in miles between here and New Zealand, but in terms of the reactions of the two boys. Victor's voice is excited, almost jubilant in this bizarre series of communications.

 _"To save this message, press star. To delete..."_ The one key cuts off the recording

 _"Seventh message."_

"It's the last time Lizzie saw her. They communicated by letter, but no matter how many times she begged, Betty never came back to see her. When she suggested that she travel to Betty instead, she always had some excuse as to why it wouldn't work. Eventually, Lizzie gave up. Sherlock, I'm convinced you were right, which is why I'm going to the South Island; I'll try to find her there. It may take a while, but I have to know what the hell happened. I;m on this like a bloodhound now; you've been so brilliant and I miss you a lot. I'll call in a couple of days to tell you what happens next. Bye for now."

 _"End of messages. Press 1 to save. Press 2 to delete. Press 3 to re-play."_

Seven messages, and not once has Victor asked how Sherlock is doing. Mycroft notes the absence of anything approaching a romantic word or even the affection of friendship from the object of Sherlock's obsessional attentions. He wonders what Victor Trevor's reaction would be to finding out that, since he'd left the UK, Sherlock had been admitted to hospital for self-harm, has committed criminal acts to obtain evidence, and is now back at Parham under the care of a psychiatrist since he appears to be having yet another acute mental health crisis.

As the chauffeur starts to navigate through the one-way system in the centre of Epsom, Mycroft's decision solidifies. He has to protect Sherlock from the callousness of a boy who could send these messages.

He presses the number two key on the phone and tosses it back on the seat in disgust.

* * *

Notes:

Jean Paul Sartre called it right: "You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the "burning marl?" Old wives' tales! There's no need for red-hot pokers. HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE!" Sherlock is now discovering the truth of this.


	39. Chapter 39

**Chapter 39: Miscommunication**

* * *

Esther surveys the wreckage of her patient from her bedside chair. She's been here all morning, observing. Sherlock is awake, and about an hour ago he'd staggered out of bed into the bathroom next door for a pee. Afterwards, he'd returned to bed, ignoring her completely.

The dissociative state of the past four days seems to have been replaced with something else: he is in control of his body enough to be sitting up, his back against the wall, knees drawn up and his arms loosely folded on them. He seems aware of his surroundings, but is choosing not to engage with them. That's different from yesterday, and it is an improvement, albeit insufficient if he continues to refuse to eat, drink or communicate.

The only thing Esther has said to the young man is that Mycroft has gone back to London, and that Sherlock won't have to talk to him if he doesn't want to. "But, you do need to talk to me," she had added, to no avail.

She needs to move this forward, so she gets up and collects the glass of water from the lab bench that he'd had installed there when he was twelve. Standing in front of him, she thrusts the water at him so it will appear in his line of sight.

"Drink." It's an order, which she makes clear with her tone.

He does not respond.

"Do you want to end up in hospital?"

No answer.

"I'm on your side, Sherlock. I think Mycroft has got this all wrong, but if you don't cooperate, then I can't argue your case."

Not even a blink of an eye. It's like he's staring right through the water, as if she and it weren't there.

Is this a test of wills, or has Sherlock truly lost his will to even try? This is not the first time the older Holmes has sought to manage his life, and usually Sherlock is quite tenacious in his rebellion against such attempts.

Esther knows she is at her wit's end on knowing how to break the deadlock. Short of conjuring the Trevor boy out of thin air, she cannot come up with any incentive or comfort to offer to her patient.

A soft tap at the bedroom door breaks the moment; she has to put the glass down to go answer it.

Mrs Walters is in the hall, a concerned look on her face. "Any progress? Should I try to bring up a bit of lunch?"

Esther shakes her head. "If I can't convince him to drink water, I doubt we'd have more success with food. He knows where this is headed, and he doesn't seem to care." The last thing the psychiatrist would want is to traumatise the boy with further involuntary treatment, but she has a duty to protect his health and his life, and that is precisely what she will be forced to do if this nearly catatonic state continues.

"There's someone here who wants to talk to you; he's down in the Long Gallery," Mrs Walters says quietly. "It's Frank Wallace, the gamekeeper. He's… well, he's been one who has helped Sherlock in the past and he has an idea."

Esther tries to grasp how a _gamekeeper_ of all things could be in any way helpful, but she is desperate enough to at least listen, so she nods. "Just keep an eye on Sherlock, please, while I speak to him. I won't be long."

When she gets to the Long Gallery, Esther's eye takes in the tall, burly figure dressed in what she assumes is appropriate clothing for someone whose job entails being outdoors all of the time. For a moment, she has a pang of concern at the slightly muddy boots he's wearing on the exquisite antique carpet adorning the floor, thinking of how Mycroft would have reacted to such a sight.

But, all that is taken in an instant as her attention is drawn to something else—an obviously young brown dog on a slip lead, sitting down beside the gamekeeper, her head looking up at him. The dog is a barely suppressed wiggle of energy, and she keeps getting up from her sitting position. This provokes a brusque command to sit, leading to her rear end landing on the carpet again, for all of about ten seconds before she's up again. When Esther approaches, the dog's fragile obedience breaks for good and it comes towards her as far as the lead will let her, wagging the tail that looks too thick and long to be in proper proportion with anything but the paws and ears.

"Bella. Sit. Down, NOW." It's a command accompanied by a jerk on the slip lead, followed by an apology. "You're Doctor Cohen. I'm Frank Wallace, the gamekeeper here at Parham, and this chocolate furball with no brain is Bella."

Esther isn't a dog person nor has she ever had time for other sorts of pets; even if she'd had any interest for such, her career would have made it impossible. Even a fish tank felt like too much responsibility for the life of another creature. She has enough of a burden of that at work.

"Mrs. Walters said you wanted to speak to me? I'm rather busy at the moment."

"Aye, and I know why. Mrs Walters says he's nay speaking again and I'll guess the lad's sitting in his bed now staring off in the distance trying to pretend that he isn't here. He's done it before, on and off over the years, plenty of times when you weren't around."

"Well, then you know that I should be back in there, trying to get him to re-engage with me."

"With respect, ma'am, you aren't the problem and you may not be a solution. I'm going to stick my neck out here and guess that Sherlock's having troubles with his boyfriend, and as a result, with his Lordship as well."

Esther is startled. Not just by the man's perceptiveness— _how does he know about Victor Trevor?_ —but also by the fact that the dog had just pressed a cold wet nose into her hand. She steps back to put some distance between her and the dog.

" _BELLA."_ Frank rolls his eyes to the painted ceiling of the Long Gallery. "Sorry; she's six months old and needs training. That's why I'm here. She's Sherlock's dog. He was there when she was born in my cottage on New Year's Eve, and he asked for her to be his own gundog, that he would be back in the summer to train her. His brother agreed."

Esther sighs. "That may be so, Sherlock is barely able to look after himself at the moment, let alone train a puppy he's probably forgotten by now."

"Forgot? Pardon me, ma'am, but have you ever seen Sherlock with an animal?"

She hasn't, so Esther shakes her head.

"He connects with them in a way that's special. Has he told you about the Irish Setter called Redbeard*? Or about his horse, Pirate**? When tatties' o'wer the side an' the lad is unreachable, he'll want nothing to do with the likes of you, me or his brother, but he will make an effort with an animal. It's easier for him than with people. At least let me give it a try. Or, perhaps I should say: let Bella here have a go."

Esther _has_ heard of the pioneering work of Jim Sinclair, a psychologist and rehabilitation counsellor who developed the use of service dogs for autistic people. The fact that Sinclair is autistic himself had encouraged him to think of its possibilities for non-verbal children. The idea of doing so for Sherlock has never occurred to her, until now, and she wonders why.

She looks down at Bella, whose wagging tail is making her entire behind swing from side to side. Shrugging, Esther says, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained. How do you propose we go about doing this?"

oOoOoOoOo

There is a noise in the hall outside of his room, but Sherlock tunes it out; noises have been coming and going. Sometimes the noises come out of the mouths of people who come in and stare at him; he ignores them, and everything else. He's been here before—everyone talking at him, telling him what to do, demanding things of him. There is no energy left; it's been swallowed up in the fog that has descended on his brain.

 _Alone protects me._

He'd made a panicked retreat into his Mind Palace to escape from Mycroft when the realisation had sunk in that all of his plans had gone up in smoke. The blood samples from the autopsy and the post mortem report are only a small part of what he needs, and Mycroft's minions had stopped him from getting the most important evidence from the solicitors: the name of the beneficiary. If he could find out who this Gess person is, then he and Victor could sort the puzzle out. Now, since he's effectively under house arrest, his phone and his passport confiscated, there is no way he could get to London to find Madam Huilang and collect a debt in the form of safe passage out of the country.

All Victor cares about is the treasure hunt he's on, an impromptu holiday of new rugby pals and family revelations. He'd left Sherlock behind and is rapidly losing interest in him because he's not managed to provide him with the evidence he needs. He sounds like he's doing absolutely fine, alone—not falling apart because of the distance between the two of them.

Out of sight, out of mind. Victor is out of sight. _I am out of my mind_.

On the two hundred and twelfth time that conclusion rumbles by in the street outside his Mind Palace, he decides that he hates it, because it's wrong. The truth is more like he gets stuck _inside_ his mind, not out of it. Round and round he paces, with no light coming in from the windows. Thoughts come running down the corridors, then leap on him, knocking him over and ravenously tearing into him with their teeth. It's best to suffer in silence—Victor doesn't know he's like this, defective, unable to function in a scenario that someone like Victor, someone _normal_ , is able to manage even after losing a family member. The only Sherlock he's even seen is a Sherlock who doesn't get like this. It's best if he doesn't come back and discover what Sherlock can really be like; he'd be disgusted and leave him for certain.

Or, maybe Victor already knows? Perhaps that is the reason why he went without him. Something had come between them after Jack Trevor's death; Victor seemed frustrated and angry with him and since he cannot work out why, the reason must be one of his defects.

To make matters worse, he has failed to have worked out a way to fund both of them out of the country without being dependent on Mycroft's signature unlocking his Trust Fund. He's failed his one and only friend, his one and only lover. Of course, Victor would prefer to find other resources,and leave him behind; it's only fair. Someone so strong, so beautiful, so _right_ is better off without the likes of him.

The thought is like a vise around him, pushing away every other idea and emotion, and it takes all the strength he has to suspend the squeeze even momentarily, to step out of himself, to retreat even further down into the dark recesses of the Palace.

He tries to do just that, to sink down and disappear, but the sudden changes in the light filtered through his closed eyelids distracts him, keeps him tethered to reality.

A sluggish deduction: something has come between him and the light from the bedroom window. The blinds were down when he had last opened his eyes, but the curtains are not drawn, so he has been using the contrast between light and dark to anchor his eyes. His nose tells him the intrusion is Doctor Cohen; she has a unique scent, a blend of the hand disinfectant that she uses when on hospital duty and her chosen perfume, _Cabochard_ by Gres. He's always liked its combination of woody, earthy aromas with a touch of leather, overlaying a strong floral note. His mother had worn it and taught him that the word in French means _headstrong_ or _stubborn_. He doesn't like using his French, not after she died.

His nose also tells him that Doctor Cohen is carrying water—the faint tang of Parham's own water supply is unmistakable—which he ignores just as he has her. Instead, he turns away from the window in his Mind Palace and takes a spiral stairway down to a lower floor. He strides to the doors of the laboratory wing of the Mind Palace and rattles the handles in the hope that this time they will open. In there are the test tubes of blood that he needs to preserve. Once he gets them frozen, he can focus on his project; once he proves that aconitine poisoning can be identified from the folding protein sequences, then they will reopen the police investigation into Jack Trevor's death. But, he's botched it; the samples will have deteriorated by now and be useless. He's not even been able to put his scientific knowledge to good use. No wonder the doors of the lab are being locked against him; he's not worthy of entry. He has failed Victor yet again.

Angry, he takes the next flight of stairs down. Here is a whole corridor of beastly regrets that gnaw on him when he dares to venture down this part of the Mind Palace. Perhaps this time they will finally consume him, bone, flesh and blood, leaving nothing left.

 _If Only_ has a separate room on this corridor, and he decides to lock himself in here for a while; speculation is slightly less upsetting than cataloging his failures. _If only_ he'd thought of going to Huilang before Mycroft found out about their plans: she would have loaned him the money and got them both to New Zealand. He'd planned to go straight to China Town as soon as he'd recovered the name on the will. If he'd thought of it before, there would have been no need to go on a bended knee to his brother and allow the wretched sibling to interfere yet again in his life. It never occurred to him, until too late, because that is the story of his life.

He hears a howl from outside in the hallway; it must be one of those regret beasts voicing its displeasure at his stupidity.

 _If only_ he'd never agreed to go to Colton Grange, never met Jack Trevor, never been coaxed into deducing his secrets. Perhaps the man would have died without disinheriting his son. If only Victor hadn't met him in the first place; he would not have found out about his mentally ill mother, or the fact that he was a bastard, nor had a reason to go off to New Zealand.

No wonder he'd left Sherlock behind. _I am the cause of this evil befalling Victor, the architect of my own downfall._

There are noises outside in the hall that intrude into the bedroom—odd sounds. Someone is talking, and Sherlock vaguely realises that it is not a usual voice but it is familiar, as are the scents of the outdoors: earth and woodland, grass and animal. But, his curiosity does not last long, and he retreats back into the _If Only_ room.

 _If only_ Mycroft hadn't stolen his phone! Has Victor been calling him? When he gets no answer, what will he decide? Will he give up? More likely, he _hasn't_ been calling, having already given up on what they had.

If only it had occurred to him earlier, that their relationship may not have meant as much to Victor. Why had he assumed that Victor's feelings for him matched the intensity of his own? Clearly, family is more important to lots of people than a boyfriend. Sherlock would gladly give up his own useless close relatives, but other people wouldn't. Victor had certainly seemed to forgive his father, judging by the depth of his grief over the man's death. Victor may have forgiven Jack Trevor for abandoning him because he had chosen the likes of Sherlock––

There is an odd sound in the room that cuts through the devastating vicious circle in his head—a sort of clicking which moves across the wooden floor towards the bed. What little thought capacity Sherlock has available tells him that it isn't human. The scent accompanying it has taken on a breathy quality, and it comes close to the edge of the bed. Noise and aroma solidify into a very soft whine.

 _Odd._ Is this one of his beastly regrets taking physical form to remind him of his stupidity? Has he been not eating or drinking for so long that he's hallucinating?

No, this is too concrete, too _real._ He focuses his eyes down onto what slowly takes the shape of a brown dog's head. The fact that the dog's tail is wagging is a vibration that he can feel through the mattress. Brown eyes connect with his and the wagging intensifies.

"Hmmm?" It's all he can manage, but it's enough. The next thing he knows is that the dog has launched itself onto the bed and is now wriggling next to him, leaning its warm furry body into his side. A pink tongue delicately protrudes to give a tiny lick at his face.

His memory of dogs claws its way through the fog, enough for him to recognise this is a Labrador and a look at the tummy she presents to him for rubbing confirms his initial deduction that she's a bitch. When he doesn't instantly comply, she clambers back onto her feet and scrambles onto his lap, lifting her front paws onto his chest to nudge at his chin.

Fingers unused to being commanded these days fumble at a collar, and lift a brass identity disc. He recognises the Parham House phone number on one side. The other reveals a name: _Bella_.

" _OH!"_

oOoOoOoOo

 **TWO WEEKS LATER**

"Progress report, if you wouldn't mind, Doctor Cohen."

There is the briefest of hesitations, which tells Mycroft more than enough. The psychiatrist is preparing to deflect or to put a positive spin on things, in order to keep him at bay for a while longer.

"The sitting, staying and recall to a whistle have all improved quite noticeably. Heeling is also much better, and the retrieving is brilliant."

"How droll. I wasn't talking about the animal but rather its owner, as you well know."

"Then you will also know from your own people that Sherlock's moved out of the House and into the second bedroom of Frank Wallace's cottage. According to him, Sherlock's now eating three meals a day once he told him off for feeding half of every plate to Bella. She is his constant companion, sleeps with him, won't leave his side. He is dedicated to training her properly and spends most of the day outside in the parklands with her. Apparently, he is ignoring the presence of your man, Charles Baker, so long as he keeps his distance."

Mycroft finds all this tedious; _do I have to prise every morsel of information from her?_ "Are you making any therapeutic progress regarding communication? Is he talking to you yet?"

"Not to me, or any other human besides Frank, and to him only at the most basic levels. In other words, he will not discuss Victor Trevor or returning to Cambridge. On the other hand, he is teaching Bella commands by hand, whistle and voice and he _does_ talk to her about human things as well—especially if he thinks no one is listening."

"So, to cut this short, you have made no progress at all. We seem to have arrived at something of an impasse, Doctor Cohen. He is neither well enough to return to normal life, nor ill enough to require a more dramatic intervention. So, it appears our only option is to wait and see what happens. I will contact you, should anything change that status quo, and I expect you to extend me the same courtesy."

Mycroft makes a mental note: speak to Mrs Walters, Frank Wallace and Charles Baker once a day for a report. One of them is bound to be more forthcoming than the psychiatrist who is, for some unfathomable reason, still siding with Sherlock.

As long as Sherlock is taking it easy while he is playing with a dog, at least he isn't trying to run away to New Zealand or attempting to acquire a criminal record. Perhaps the time-out will at least put some useful mental distance between him and that wretched Trevor boy and his family problems. According to Frank Wallace, he has stopped attempting to use the landlines in the house to contact Trevor. In any case, Mycroft has informed BT to disable international dialing from the Parham numbers.

Lord knows that Mycroft could do with his own time-out. Removing Ford from his in-tray of worries has simply led to more things piling in there, and now he is the one whose neck is on the chopping block if he can't satisfy those who keep dumping him with their problems. From the Brazilian debt crisis and Indo-Pakistan clashes in Kashmir to Russian air manoeuvres taking place over the Pankisis Gorge near the border with Georgia, everywhere disruptions and conflicts are simmering close to boiling point. At times Mycroft feels like he is sitting on a volcano with eruptions and earthquakes threatening at all corners of the globe.

However, he's not one to leave anything to chance when it comes to either of his two siblings. Even while hoping that the Trevor absence is making Sherlock's heart less fond, Mycroft has to do what he can to close down his escape routes.

The first step is to visit a particular premise on Gerrard Street.

oOoOoOoOo

"You would be best served by asking your people to leave, Madam Huilang."

She might be tiny but there is ferocity in her eyes. "Who are you to tell me what to do in my own restaurant?" The stony looks from the Chinese men on their feet behind her might intimidate someone else, but Mycroft is made of sterner stuff.

He gives her one of his smiles that doesn't reach his eyes, responding with exaggerated civility. "Someone who has the capacity to shut that business down and make it impossible for you to fulfill your obligations to the 14K Triad."

"I don't know what you are talking about. I run a restaurant. You want something to eat?"

The conversation then proceeds in Cantonese, with her sneering at his Hong Kong accent, and he pointing out that the Pearl River accent makes her denials hard to believe. He presents her with more than enough evidence of her gang's activities to make it clear that he will be able to deliver on his threat. While she remains inscrutable, the shifting weight of her men shows he has hit home with much of the revelation. Perhaps she is unhappy with those men knowing too much of her business. In any case, she blinks first and orders them to leave.

Reverting to English, she asks, "I'm not afraid of you, Mister Englishman."

He comes to the point quickly. "I am not here to make life difficult for you. If we attempted to uproot every aspect of Chinese organised crime in the country, then it would only be a matter of time before one of the new Triads moved in. I have no wish to disturb the status quo."

"Then why you here?" Hands on her hips, Tinkling Black Jade looks annoyed.

He finds the English translation of her name rather ridiculous; there is no delicacy in those eyes. "Because I need a commitment from you not to disturb the status quo, should someone by the name of Sherlock Holmes come asking for favours."

"What's he to you?"

"Family."

"Ah." Her eyes widen in sudden understanding. "You his big brother, Big Nose. Dá Bìzi."

Mycroft knows that this is a racial slur, but used more in the north east of China than down south. It is the sort of schoolboy humour that would appeal to Sherlock. "I am aware that you have a debt of honour to him for services he rendered to you three years ago. That debt is redeemed here and now by me, as the head of the boy's family. The only thing you owe him should he come seeking a favour is to show him the door."

"And if I don't agree?"

"Then the full force of British law will be applied to the Samsui organisation, and your enemies will prosper at your own family's expense."

She considers that for a brief moment, and then nods. "Good bye, Big Brother. If Little Brother comes asking, I tell him I cannot help; family is family."

oOoOoOoOo

Mycroft makes a daily check on Sherlock's phone, which he is keeping at the office. For four days after he'd deleted Victor's seven messages there had been no new calls. Then, on the sixth day, the boy had called to leave a new message.

"Sherlock, it's me at last! You must have thought I'd fallen off the earth or something. Can you believe it: my phone got nicked! I was in Wellington, waiting for the ferry across the Cook Strait to the South Island and I went to the loo, left it on the table by mistake and by the time I got back, it was gone. Shit. I couldn't believe it! But, I had to run to catch the ferry, or I would have lost the money I'd spent on the ticket. Even with a student discount, I'm watching the pennies. Using buses, staying in hostels and all that. I'm in a place called Blenheim, in the Marlborough area, because that's where Lizzie said Betty's first letter came from. There are like thirty wineries here, but they're all pretty close together so it's doable. I managed to do a few days match stewarding work at Landsdowne Park—that's the Rugby Union ground here in Blenheim—so I could buy a new pay-as-you-go phone; make a note of the number: plus sixty four—that's for New Zealand—oh two one nine seven six four two seven one. International calls on it are mind-blowingly expensive, so I'm going to have to call less often. Give me a call, will you? It costs less for me if you leave a message on this service than it did on my old phone, so ring me back. Hey, I miss you, and hope you're okay. Bye for now."

A day later, another message is left.

"Hi Sherlock. Just to say that I found something at Jackson Estate Vineyards outside Blenheim. Betty worked there years ago, but luckily their winemaker has been around that long so remembered her. What's interesting is that she reverted to her maiden name Betty Simpson, claiming to be a divorcee from Sydney. She did some of their marketing and shipping work, invoices and the like, for a couple of years. The winemaker says he remembers her as having a baby while she was here; he told me the he'd thought it pretty rum of her husband to run off after leaving her pregnant. Maybe this baby is our Mystery Woman—who knows? The guy said Betty went south towards Christchurch before the kid got to school age; remembers giving her a reference, but it was like a general to-whom-it-may-concern type, because she didn't know where she'd end up. I thought I'd hear from you once you got my new number; are you okay? Give me a call; I'm missing you."

Mycroft considers the last statement a rather perfunctory one, especially considering Victor's nearly carefree attitude to his little gap adventures in the Antipodes. He wonders how Sherlock can be so blind as to not realise that the depth of his emotional investment in this Trevor boy is not being returned? Judging by the conversation the transcript of which Mycroft had read between the two boys, the rather breezy phrase ' _missing you'_ has taken on an entirely different meaning for Sherlock, enough to plunge him into acute depression and voluntary mutism. Mycroft had been surprised at the things he had managed to convey when speaking with Victor; it is highly unusual for Sherlock to be able to verbalise his emotions like that. Yet, the response from Trevor has remained almost bland and mechanical rather than heartfelt.

His brother has never had the ability to moderate his attachments, which is why this one has to be come to an end.

oOoOoOoOo

On his way home from a Cabinet office meeting to deal with Chinese interference in the rising tensions in Kashmir between India and Pakistan, Mycroft checks the phone again.

"Hey, I'm getting worried now. Why aren't you replying? Are you even getting these messages? Look, I don't have much time, got a bus to catch, but you know that thing you suggested—looking for death certificates? It made me think. So, before heading to Christchurch, I went to the Blenheim registry office and asked if they had any _birth_ records under the mother's name of Betty Simpson. Guess what? We hit the jackpot! The birth certificate says Gloria Elizabeth Scott Spencer Simpson—what a mouthful!— was born at the Wairau hospital on the twelfth of February 1978. Did you realise that the initials add up to G.E.S.S! Kind of a weird coincidence that our birthdays are so close, isn't it? I'm trying to see if I can find her in school records in Christchurch, starting tomorrow."

Victor clearly hasn't quite got the brainpower to put two and two together, but Mycroft is suddenly struck by how the pieces connect: the crime that Sherlock had been convinced happened is most probably a double rape. As the DNA test proved that Victor is not Jack's issue, then probability suggests that Peter Spencer is the biological father who made Gloria Trevor pregnant. Perhaps this Gess person is the result of Jack Trevor doing the same to Spencer's wife, a horrible sort of revenge from two deeply homophobic men who married a pair of lesbians.

Once the surprise fades, Mycroft loses interest. _Irrelevant_. The sins of those two fathers have no significance to him, unlike those perpetrated by Richard Holmes against his youngest son. Sherlock's current voluntary mutism first emerged back then and, thanks to the utterly unnecessary drama brought on by Trevor, has returned with a vengeance.

Sherlock does not seem able to deal with separation or loss. Starting with his mother and then various animals, the boy has no sense of self-preservation, no ability to distance himself. He plunges in, head-first, with no escape plan or self-respect. This is why Mycroft has his reservations about Frank Wallace's plan: even if this dog has managed to get Sherlock out of bed and functioning at a low level, it runs the risk of simply transferring emotional dependency from a human to a dog. With the animal's inevitably shorter life span, has Sherlock simply traded one imminent heartbreak for another in his customary blindness to what's good for him? _Caring is not an advantage._ He wishes he could learn to care less about Sherlock, but he knows he can't.

oOoOoOoOo

The next four days' worth of messages from Trevor Junior are more succinct.

"You're scaring me. Are you alright? Why aren't you calling me back?"

…

"Has someone stolen your phone? Shit, that would awful. Mycroft's not taken it, has he? Did you piss him off?"

Mycroft raises an amused eyebrow.

…

"For God's sake, Sherlock! _Answer your bloody phone_!"

Mycroft is not surprised when six hours after the temper tantrum the inevitable ultimatum is issued.

…

"Okay, I'm not taking this silence any longer. I'm going to start calling around to see where the hell you are. I need to know you've not been in an accident or anything."

After that, Mycroft reasserts his strict instructions to the Mrs Walters and the Parham security team. All incoming calls, even to the estate offices, are to be screened and no international calls are to be answered. He makes it very clear to Frank Wallace that if the man values his position, he must not attempt to circumvent the rules should Victor attempt to telephone him looking for Sherlock.

It leads to some resistance from the Scot. "My Lord, I think he would benefit from having his own phone returned. Don't you think they should sort their thing out?"

"I assure you there is nothing to 'sort out'. It's over, and the sooner Sherlock accepts it, the better."

Frank's comment does make him consider whether he should return the phone, minus the message from Victor explaining about the theft. Without the boy's new phone number, Sherlock's attempts to telephone New Zealand will lead nowhere. Presumably, whoever stole the Trevor boy's phone is ignoring the messages that are being placed there by Sherlock. It might actually help his brother realise that he needs to stop this ridiculous pining of his and get on with his own life if Victor isn't available and doesn't seem to be making an effort to reach him, either. Best wait a few days, but returning the phone is definitely worth considering.

The next day, a call comes from Causton, and fortunately it is made to the Parham House landline. He is politely redirected by Mrs Walters to Mycroft in London.

"Good evening, Mister Causton. I understand you are have been asked by your former employer's son to contact my brother. I regret to say that he is unavailable, and is likely to be so for the foreseeable future."

"Good evening, sir. May I know why this is the case? Mister Trevor will want to know the reason why he has been unable to contact him by telephone. I have been asked to pass on his new phone number, in case your brother has somehow lost it. Mister Trevor is worried; he wants to know if Sherlock is alright."

"My brother is well enough, and the new number was received, as I understand it. I think it best that neither you nor I interfere in this long-distance relationship. Rather fraught with opportunities for misunderstandings and miscommunication, if you catch my meaning. Best if we just leave it to the two of them, don't you think? It's hardly something you should be getting involved with, especially now that you are going to be looking for a new position. I could ask about amongst my contacts to see if there are any suitable vacancies, if you would find that helpful?"

"That's very kind of you, your Lordship, but that won't be necessary. As it turns out, my wife and I are moving to Devon permanently to be near her mother who is unwell. I am unlikely to be available for a butler position due to caring responsibilities, so will be looking into some part-time positions in the hospitality sector down here."

"I understand—family first. Thank you for your call, Causton. Should Mister Trevor ring you again, do pass on my greetings."

oOoOoOoOo

 **One Week Later**

"Sherlock; something's going on with you and I don't understand why you aren't calling me back. Causton says you have my new number, so I'm not going to waste any more money or time leaving messages. Not hearing from you makes me think that you've changed your mind–– about you and me? Maybe I should have realised that earlier. I don't know, and you're not talking to me, so what am I supposed to think?"

There is a pause before Victor continues. "Tomorrow, I'm starting a new job at the Christchurch Rugby club to earn enough to pay for a plane ticket; should take me three weeks. I'll be off to Sydney because that is where Elizabeth's daughter moved to when her mum died. It won't be easy to find Gess; Sydney is a fucking big city, and it's going to take a while. But, since you no longer seem to care about any of that I guess what I'm saying here is that I'll see you in September, and then we'll see what happens next…if you even want anything to happen, that is. Bye."

After deleting the first of Trevor's communiques—the one with the new phone number— Mycroft decides to leave the rest, including this final message on the phone. The resignation in Victor's voice should make it clear to Sherlock that he needs to move on. Should Trevor break his resolution not to call, Baker has already found a way to block Victor Trevor's new phone number from gaining access to Sherlock's old number, a straightforward diversion which will advise the caller that this number is no longer in service.

The phone will be sent down to Frank Wallace; Mycroft has decided against putting in an appearance at Parham. Doctor Cohen's advice to stay away has become a convenient excuse. As long as Sherlock is safe and under constant surveillance, he can take a bit of respite leave from constantly worrying about him. Perhaps the psychiatrist is right; time will heal all wounds, even those that are self-inflicted by reckless involvement with other people.

oOoOoOoOo

"You've done a grand job with her, laddie; time for her to go to big school now. Bella needs to be alongside the other gundogs, so she can learn how to work when there are the distractions of a proper shoot. Once you're back at university, she'll have to get used to working for another handler. So, let Nik Green have a go with her alongside the others. He's taking the lot of them down to the Springhead Farm for a couple of days to get them used to rabbits and chickens."

The trailer attached to the back of the Land Rover is full of dogs: four black Labs, three springer spaniels, and three cockers. They are this year's puppies, now aged between seven and 12 months old and ready to take their next steps to becoming Parham gundogs.

Sherlock is standing at the edge of the kennel area. It's part of the Parham Estates Saw Yard, and the sound of wood being worked in one of the outbuildings means that Frank has to speak a bit louder than he'd like to; this means that Charles Baker, standing by the wood store, may well hear every word. The agent keeping an eye on Sherlock has learned to keep his distance from the boy, but Frank knows he will not allow Sherlock out of his sight whenever he is out of the Keeper's cottage.

There is a crinkle forming between the boy's eyebrows that the gamekeeper has come to interpret as concern and confusion. He has had to learn a lot about how Sherlock communicates non-verbally, given his current state of mind. For much of the past summer weeks he has been monosyllabic, at best. It's made for quiet evenings, to be sure. Meals are eaten in silence, after which Sherlock tends to retreat into a book, Bella resting at his side.

There had been some good days when the dog had managed to coax out a smile. Then, there had been the bad days, when the boy was so wrapped up in his head, so anxious, so wound up that he could barely sit still. It's fathomless pain without resolve, and it breaks Frank's heart to see such a thing. Sherlock has no words to let it out, and there's no way to find any closure since he's not allowed to talk to the Trevor boy. The gamekeeper has a mind to wring his neck if he's gone and done what this looks like, walked away without an explanation when he obviously means the world to Sherlock, who's lost both his first friend and first love.

On one of these evenings, when Sherlock had just sat staring at the rainy darkness outside, stroking and hugging Bella to him like a lifeline instead of giving in to her invitations for a bit of play, Frank had given him some whisky—never mind if the lad dislikes the taste. "If you want to talk about Victor––"

Sherlock's head had snapped up, eyes wide as though frightened, as though startled by the very name even though it must have been on his mind all the time.

"Can't," Sherlock had whispered, looked away, and then put the glass back on the table, untouched.

"That's alright, too. Just saying, I'm here if you need to talk."

Sherlock had not replied.

"I'm fer bed, then. Close the baffle in a bit, will you?"

He'd gotten a nod. The next morning, the boy had disappeared before breakfast off to the mist-shrouded woods with the Labrador in tow.

Frank's been worried about this moment; how to separate the two of them without making it too hard on Sherlock. But the dog needs this next step, and it is important that Sherlock can accept that fact.

Now, Bella looks patient as she sits beside Sherlock, but she seems to detect his uncertainty, so looks up from her position at his knee to give a whine. Instinctively, his hand drops to her head to give her a reassuring pat. He then goes down on one knee so he can look at her closely, with his hands rubbing the velvety fur on the back of her ears. "Time to go, Bella. Have fun. You're ready for this now."

It's startling for Frank to hear entire sentences from him, but they are still only reserved for the dog who does not demand them of him, doesn't judge him.

Sherlock stands up, takes a deep breath and then strides over to the trailer, dropping the tailgate and giving a hand signal to Bella. "Get in."

She jumps up to join the other dogs, and then turns as he shuts the tailgate behind her. Once Sherlock swings the metal grill shut, Nik Green puts the Land Rover in gear and drives out of the yard.

Frank watches the only dog that bothers to look back at them, her brown muzzle pushed up against the grill.

Sherlock is watching the retreating back of the car, too, shoulders hunched but head held high. Frank had worried he'd take this hard, letting the dog go with the others.

"She needs to learn to get along with other dogs. Mycroft will get rid of her otherwise," Sherlock says resignedly.

"I'll keep her at the cottage if she doesn't make the grade to join the rest of the gundog crew. His Lordship may think her a munter, but he knows she's yours." Taking the phone out of his pocket, he walks up to Sherlock. "That reminds me: he sent this down this morning; I think this is yours."

" _OH!"_ Sherlock gasps and grabs the phone from Frank, nearly dropping it in excitement.

Sherlock strides away, towards the road where he will be able to get a signal; the cottage and sawmill are too far away from the mast in Storrington.

Frank watches his shadow, Barker, following fifty meters behind.

oOoOoOoOo

Sherlock is standing in a field with the phone pressed tight against his ear, a finger shoved into the other to block out the cawing sound of rooks. He'd walked down the service road until the signal reached two bars, and then out in the field to avoid Mycroft's minion from getting close enough to overhear.

For the past seven weeks, Sherlock had tried to sneak a call to Victor from the landlines, but it had kept going to the messenger service. Then his brother must have gotten wise to that and disabled the international dialing on the Parham landlines. That had led him twice into pick-pocketing the cook's mobile to leave another message. Could there be a problem again with his phone? At least Sherlock's number hasn't changed, so if Victor has wanted to keep in touch, there should be something in his voicemail, at least, provided that Mycroft hasn't somehow interfered with it.

" _You have… seven new messages_."

 _Just seven…?_ That's barely one a week!

Has Victor given up on him? In trepidation, he presses the key to play them.

His knees nearly buckle when he finally, _finally_ hears Victor's voice. _Fucking Mycroft._ He has never hated his brother more than he does for the fact that he has kept all of this from him for _weeks_!

He listens to each of them, getting more and more agitated and anxious. When the last one ends _"–– I'll see you in September, and then we'll see what happens next…if you even want anything to happen, that is. Bye._ "

Sherlock can't breathe.

What does Victor mean, 'if _you_ even want anything to happen'? Sherlock _hasn't_ changed his mind—he thought Victor had wanted him, and now he's changed his mind since he hasn't heard back–– how can Victor think that he can wait until _September_ to _maybe_ see each other? What the hell does Victor think he's going to do in Australia for so long? Doesn't Victor want to talk to him until then? Why? Doesn't he understand _anything_? Had he never listened when Sherlock tried to tell him––

 _No._ He can't accept this. It's not fair. It's not fair that he never understands, that he always fails, that he never knows the rules, that he never knows what's expected of him, that dealing with other people is like constantly being expected to apologise for things he didn't even know he was doing or didn't know he should have done! He has tried and tried and tried––

 _I love you._

Desperation brings on a recklessness. He dials a number he knows by heart, now, after punching it into phones every damned time Baker's eye was elsewhere.

The result is the same.

" _The person you have rung is not available. Please leave a message after the tone."_

Could this a wrong number? Could he have mis-dialed in his haste? He tries again, more slowly, checking the number on the screen after every key stroke. _Yes, it is the right one!_

After a gap which he presumes is the result of international roaming at work, the phone rings three times, and then a click. _"The person you have rung is not available. Please leave a message after the tone."_

Again. _"The person you have rung is not available. Please leave a message after the tone."_

AGAIN _! "The person you have rung is not available. Please leave a message after the tone."_

He waits for the beep, hands shaking with anger towards himself, towards Mycroft, towards _everything_. "Victor…it's me! I didn't have my phone, I only got your messages now! Bloody Mycroft took it away from me, pissed off because I tried to get the evidence we needed in Norwich. I had it all planned, a way to get out of the country without him knowing, get the money to pay your tuition fees and plane tickets and–– I've been held prisoner at Parham." He whirls around to glare at the figure of Barker, standing at the edge of the field. "Bloody prison warder has got his eye on me right now. Have you not been getting my messages? I've left them, sneaking calls on the landlines and other mobiles I've nicked off the staff here. Call back as soon as you can. Just call me––please. You have no idea…" His voice breaks and he has to take a deep breath, "…no idea how much I miss you. _\I love you._ I can't wait until September, how could you––why would you want to––" he gasps for breath, tears trailing down his cheeks. " _Please_ , Victor. Just––"

Before he even knows what he is trying to say—it feels as though he has not even begun trying to explain the sense of being torn apart from the inside when he lets himself think about Victor—the phone beeps to signal the end of the recording period.

Aghast, he looks down at the phone.

 _'Maybe I'll see you in September.'_

The realisation sinks in. Victor obviously doesn't find it difficult to stay apart for that long. He doesn't want to know why Sherlock hasn't answered his messages. He doesn't want to hear what has been going on back home.

 _He doesn't want…_

oOoOoOoOo

Baker watches from the edge of the wheat field as the Holmes boy is on the phone. He stands with his back to the road, as if pretending that he isn't being watched. Over the past weeks, Charles has learned how to keep just enough distance between him and the boy to avoid confrontations. Too close, and Holmes simply stopped, sat down on the floor or ground wherever he'd been and shut down. The first time it had happened in the walled garden at the side of Parham House, Charles had rushed over to see if the boy had taken ill and was in need of assistance. He'd not responded to Charles' questions or reacted even when his shoulder had been shaken. Eyes blanked out and non-responsive, the boy had been unreachable. He'd called Lord Holmes and asked for advice; should that doctor be called?

The advice had been abrupt. "Consider this an extreme form of passive resistance, Baker. Don't touch him, don't talk to him. Back up, walk away and put enough distance between you and him that you are no longer visible to him. If he doesn't come out of it in ten minutes, send in the dog. That seems to make a difference, according to Doctor Cohen; God knows why. And next time try to be a little less intrusive. Do I have to remind you that you are there to protect him, not to annoy him?"

So when he sees the boy sink down into the wheat, Baker mentally checks the distance. He's outside the zone of annoyance as he's come to term it. The wheat is not tall enough to cover the boy; he's just sitting there. Binoculars show him more detail. The phone is no longer visible, and Holmes is just staring off into the distance.

It is almost ten minutes before the boy gets up and underway again. He walks straight back towards Charles, who decides to stand his ground rather than back away. As Holmes exits the field and gets to the road, he passes within feet of Charles, giving his a long sharp look, as if wanting to see him close up. Then he is past and striding back to the cottage. Following at a safe distance, Baker watches him enter the cottage.

He returns to the sawmill office which has been his base ever since the boy moved in with the gamekeeper. Baker opens his laptop and clicks on the surveillance cameras in the cottage. He thinks it may be a long night ahead, if the boy doesn't have the dog to keep him in bed.

* * *

Author's Notes:

*Redbeard in my universe is a dog. See Ex Files, Execute, for the story of Sherlock and Redbeard.  
**Sherlock's relationship with Pirate, a Friesian horse, is covered extensively in Musgrave Blaze, and a bit in Defrag.  
and I have to thank the incomparable J_Baillier for the Scottish phrase about tatties overboard. Her research skills are fantastic; I'd not heard this before and I'm a second-generation Scots! She loves my OC Frank Wallace and has helped me shape him here. Her delicious finger-prints are all over this chapter; she is more a contributing editor than a beta, and I am very lucky this is so.


End file.
